Manufacturing Project Manager

Role Summary

The Project Manager will report to the Global PMO Lead and support the execution and governance of complex manufacturing programs across multiple sites. Projects may include new-site bring-up, manufacturing expansion, equipment installation and qualification, new product introduction, capacity readiness, production transfer, and operational ramp.

This position is intended for a project manager with direct exposure to manufacturing, engineering, operations, supply chain, facilities, or related industrial environments. The successful candidate must be able to work across functions, organize complex information, drive action-item closure, identify execution risks, and progressively assume ownership of assigned workstreams.

This is a manufacturing execution role rather than a software-development or IT implementation project management position.

Key Responsibilities

• Support cross-functional manufacturing projects from planning and site readiness through qualification, ramp, and production handoff.
• Develop and maintain integrated project schedules, milestone plans, dependencies, and critical-path activities.
• Maintain accurate action, risk, issue, decision, change, and resource trackers.
• Drive follow-up with functional owners and escalate overdue actions, unresolved dependencies, and execution risks.
• Consolidate project updates from engineering, operations, supply chain, quality, facilities, IT infrastructure, equipment, finance, and other functional teams.
• Track readiness across areas such as facilities, infrastructure, equipment, materials, staffing, systems, qualification, and production.
• Identify gaps, conflicting information, schedule misalignment, and missing ownership before they affect major milestones.
• Prepare concise dashboards, executive status reports, presentations, meeting agendas, and decision summaries.
• Clearly communicate project status, accomplishments, upcoming milestones, risks, blockers, recovery actions, and leadership support required.
• Coordinate project reviews and working sessions across functions, manufacturing sites, suppliers, customers, and time zones.
• Maintain organized project documentation and a reliable source of current project information.
• Support resource planning, capacity reviews, budget or CAPEX tracking, and readiness assessments as assigned.
• Participate in site reviews and engage directly with manufacturing teams to validate progress and reported status.
• Take ownership of defined projects or workstreams as manufacturing knowledge and project-management capability develop.
• Support continuous improvement of PMO processes, templates, governance, and reporting standards.

Experience and Qualifications

• Two to five years of experience in manufacturing project management, project coordination, operations, industrial or manufacturing engineering, supply chain, facilities, equipment deployment, or a related function.
• Direct experience working in a manufacturing, production, factory, warehouse, construction, or industrial environment is strongly preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, operations, supply chain, business, construction management, or a related field preferred.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating deliverables across multiple functions and holding owners accountable for commitments.
• Ability to develop and maintain schedules, milestone plans, action trackers, and risk-management tools.
• Strong organization, follow-through, analytical thinking, and attention to detail.
• Ability to distinguish between reported progress and objective evidence of completion.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to summarize complex information for leadership.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities, incomplete information, and aggressive schedules.
• Proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint; experience with Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Jira, Monday.com, or comparable project-management tools is beneficial.
• Willingness to participate in meetings across international time zones and travel to manufacturing sites as required.
• English proficiency required; Spanish and/or Mandarin is beneficial.
• CAPM, PMP, Lean Six Sigma, or similar certification is beneficial but not required.

Preferred Experience

Experience in one or more of the following areas is highly desirable:

• New manufacturing-site or production-line bring-up
• New product introduction and production ramp
• Equipment installation, commissioning, or qualification
• Manufacturing capacity and resource planning
• Facilities or infrastructure readiness
• Material, supplier, or BOM readiness
• Product or production transfer between sites
• Electronics, server, high-tech, or contract manufacturing
• Customer-facing manufacturing programs
• Multi-site or global project coordination

Success Characteristics

The ideal candidate:

• Takes ownership and follows issues through closure.
• Is comfortable engaging directly with engineers, operations leaders, and factory teams.
• Raises risks early rather than waiting for deadlines to be missed.
• Can convert fragmented functional updates into a clear overall project status.
• Understands that project reporting must be supported by measurable progress and evidence.
• Communicates concisely and knows when an issue requires escalation.
• Demonstrates the potential to grow from PMO coordination into independent project and workstream leadership.