Production Manager

Job Description

Company Overview

The Smart Components North America Division, within the Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Automotive segment, drives profitability by leveraging its innovative solutions and application engineering. Our products are made up of fuel housings, door and safety handles, innovative Capless solutions, and EV charge ports for major OEMs around the world. We have multiple manufacturing locations across North America: Mokena and Richton Park, Illinois as well as Saltillo and Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Position Summary

The Production Manager leads daily manufacturing operations for the assigned injection molding and assembly operations across all three shifts at the assigned manufacturing location. This role reports to the U.S. Operations Manager and ensures safe, efficient, and reliable production by maintaining a strong shop-floor presence and serving as the primary link between shifts. This role resolves immediate operational issues, manages production schedules and labor, and drives accountability for performance and cost. This role ensures consistent priorities, effective shift handoffs, timely escalation, schedule execution, technical support prioritization, labor management, employee accountability, and follow-through on operational issues to improve safety, quality, delivery, productivity, and cost.

Key Responsibilities

• Execute daily production operations across all three shifts to meet safety, quality, delivery, productivity, cost, and customer requirements.

• Serve as the primary point of contact for the assigned location, including off-shift, weekend, and holiday operational escalations.

• Maintain high visibility and an active leadership presence on the shop floor.

• Serve as the primary link between shifts and functions, ensuring consistent priorities, effective shift handoffs, clear ownership, timely escalation, and follow-through on operational issues.

• Directly lead first-shift production operations and manage the second- and third-shift Production Supervisors.

• Identify and resolve immediate operational issues that could affect production, quality, staffing, cost, or delivery.

• Directly manage production schedules, labor allocation, staffing levels, overtime, and resource priorities. Maintain a forward-looking production and labor plan to reduce shortage-driven scheduling, last-minute schedule changes, and avoidable overtime.

• Lead, coach, and hold accountable Production Supervisors, Team Leads, Setup Technicians, Material Handlers, and production operators.

• Set priorities and partner with other leaders to hold technical & other resources accountable for resolving downtime, cycle-time losses, process instability, quality concerns, changeover issues, and other production constraints.

• Hold hiring, disciplinary, and spending authority within approved limits.

• Own performance for assigned production lines, departments, and value streams.

• Own full P&L accountability for financial performance of assigned cost centers and their contribution to the plant’s overall financial performance.

• Control and improve conversion costs, including:

  • Direct and indirect labor
  • Overtime
  • Scrap
  • Premium freight
  • Variable inventory costs
  • External sorting

• Review daily performance metrics, identify gaps, establish corrective actions, assign clear ownership and due dates, and escalate significant risks.

• Partner with Quality, Materials, Maintenance, Engineering, and Human Resources to address operational constraints and ensure timely resolution.

• Partner with Quality and Engineering to resolve production quality concerns, establish clear acceptance standards, contain questionable product, and ensure formal disposition before production or shipment continues. Promptly escalate unresolved quality concerns.

• Ensure process changes, automation modifications, production startups, and restarts are properly evaluated, validated, documented, and communicated across all shifts.

• Represent the plant to customers, auditors, and corporate leadership as required.

• Own safety performance and culture. Ensure compliance with safety requirements, quality standards, work instructions, company policies, and applicable regulations.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that increase efficiency, reduce waste, improve quality, strengthen standard work, and reinforce operational discipline and accountability.

• Develop Production Supervisors, Team Leads, and operators through clear expectations, coaching, performance feedback, and succession planning.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in operations, engineering, business, or a related field preferred.

• Five or more years of manufacturing leadership experience, including direct supervision of front-line leaders, P&L ownership, and multi-shift operations.

• Experience directly leading production and production-support functions in a lean manufacturing environment.

• Experience managing production schedules, labor, overtime, cost centers, and operational performance.

• Working knowledge of lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, quality systems, standard work, and production metrics.

• Strong problem-solving, communication, leadership, and employee-accountability skills.

• Ability to interpret operational and financial data and convert findings into clear actions.

• Automotive, injection molding, automated assembly, or other high-volume manufacturing experience preferred.

Key Measures of Success

• Safety performance

• Quality and scrap

• Schedule attainment and on-time delivery

• Production plan stability and reduction in shortage-driven scheduling

• Labor efficiency and overtime

• Downtime and changeover performance

• Premium freight

• Inventory-related variable costs

• External sorting costs

• Productivity and conversion-cost performance

• Shift-handoff effectiveness and corrective-action closure

• Supervisor, Team Lead, and operator capability development

ITW is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Compensation Information

$93k-$120k

ITW is an equal opportunity employer. We value our colleagues’ unique perspectives, experiences and ideas and create workplaces where everyone can develop their careers and perform to their full potential.

As an equal employment opportunity employer, ITW is committed to equal employment opportunity and fair treatment for employees, beginning with the hiring process and continuing through all aspects of the employment relationship.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age, disability, protected Veteran status or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.