Department Head - Mechanical Fabrication

Role Purpose

In this role, you will facilitate and direct daily production activities for the Laser Optics or Precision Optics fabrication business in Fairport. You will lead a high-precision manufacturing organization responsible for producing critical optical components while ensuring control and compliance with established process controls, specifications, standard work, and operating procedures. This role is accountable for achieving plant and customer requirements for safety, quality, delivery, selects, yield, equipment uptime, throughput, and cost.The Operations Department Head will work closely with Engineering, Planning, Quality, Maintenance, Supply Chain, and other functional partners to establish priorities, resolve manufacturing constraints, improve process capability, and align operational capacity with customer demand. A key focus of the role is building a strong, flexible, and accountable fabrication organization through clear expectations, disciplined execution, effective training and qualification, and employee development.

Key Responsibilities

Schedule resources and prioritize fabrication activities to ensure efficient production schedule compliance
Provide daily direction and leadership to production and maintenance employees, technicians, and engineers in accordance with established procedures and policies.
Communicate and report production and process performance metrics to production teams, plant operations staff, and functional leaders. Ensure production targets and customer delivery requirements are met on a daily and weekly basis.
Own execution against key operational performance measures, including safety, quality, delivery, selects, yield, throughput, equipment uptime, productivity, and cost. Establish and drive corrective actions when performance deviates from plan.
Engage with plant teams and functional groups to identify and implement process improvements, capacity improvements, and cost-reduction projects using structured problem solving, data analysis, Lean, DMAIC, and other continuous-improvement methodologies.
Perform performance reviews and develop and reinforce career and talent development plans for hourly/direct labor employees.
Ensure fabrication processes operate in compliance with established process control set-points, specifications, standard work, and operating procedures. Maintain process discipline and rigorous change control.
Develop, implement, and monitor training, qualification, certification, cross-training, and development programs for new and experienced operators to improve the capability and flexibility.
Partner with Engineering and technical teams to improve process capability, manufacturability, yield, cycle time, equipment performance, and overall process stability
Facilitate and monitor process and equipment changes and experimental plans involving the production process.
Manage monthly department spending, including variance analysis and corrective actions. Identify cost-reduction opportunities and provide operational input into annual budget and forecasting cycles.
Champion safety standards and expectations, including EHS requirements, cleanroom protocols, safe work practices, and timely completion of corrective actions.
Build effective cross-functional relationships and communicate production performance, risks, recovery plans, capacity constraints, and priorities throughout the Laser and Precision Optics organization.

Experiences/Education - Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Science, or another technical/STEM discipline.
• 5+ years of leadership experience in manufacturing or a technically complex operating environment, with demonstrated experience leading and developing frontline teams.
• Proven ability to translate technical and operational requirements into disciplined execution and results across safety, quality, delivery, cost, and productivity.

Experiences/Education - Desired

• Experience leading operations in a technically complex or high-precision manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated experience leading, developing, and building high-performing teams, including coaching, talent development, and succession planning.
• Experience applying structured problem-solving and continuous improvement methodologies, including Lean, DMAIC, root-cause analysis, and data analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to partner across Engineering, Quality, Maintenance, Planning, and Supply Chain to resolve manufacturing constraints and improve operational performance.
• Experience driving improvements in process capability, yield, throughput, cycle time, equipment utilization, and cost.
• Experience supporting new product introductions, process changes, equipment changes, and manufacturing scale-up or capacity expansion.
• Experience working with manufacturing systems such as SAP and MES.
• Strong business and financial acumen, including experience with departmental spending, forecasting, budgeting, and cost reduction.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to work effectively across all levels of an organization.