Director of Operations

Kentucky Trailer

As a part of the global industrial organization Marmon Holdings—which is backed by Berkshire Hathaway—you’ll be doing things that matter, leading at every level, and winning a better way. We’re committed to making a positive impact on the world, providing you with diverse learning and working opportunities, and fostering a culture where everyone’s empowered to be their best.

Job Title: Director of Operations
Division: Kentucky Trailer
Location: Louisville, KY- 3 site locations
Reports to: President, Kentucky Trailer
FLSA: Exempt

This position has multiple direct reports across 3 sites. Current direct reports include Operations Manager, 7 Team Leaders, and a Manufacturing Engineer/Facilities Manager. This position requires local travel between the 3 sites in Louisville.

Kentucky Trailer has been building in Louisville since 1879, when it was founded as the Kentucky Wagon Manufacturing Company. Today it designs and builds custom trailers and truck bodies for moving and storage, snack food distribution, package delivery, and specialty markets such as mobile medical, government, and motorsports. Most of what we build is engineered to order rather than off the shelf, which makes our operations both challenging and rewarding to lead.

The Director of Operations leads all day-to-day manufacturing operations and is accountable for Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, People, and Productivity results. The role owns the manufacturing operating budget, develops frontline leaders, and builds a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. Works closely with Materials, Supply Chain, Engineering, Finance, Human Resources, and Commercial Sales to make sure production plans are executable and customer commitments are met. The workforce is non-union.

Position Key Accountabilities: 

Safety

• Create and sustain a Safety First and Always culture, with every employee understanding their personal responsibility for a safe workplace.
• Enforce safety policies, procedures and safe work practices at every level of the organization.
• Make sure hazards, near misses and incidents are addressed promptly, with root causes corrected.
• Ensure compliance with OSHA and environmental requirements and lead continuous improvement toward an incident-free workplace.

Manufacturing performance and planning

• Lead daily manufacturing activities to meet production schedules and customer delivery commitments.
• Set clear daily, weekly and monthly expectations for each production area, and align labor and resources to requirements.
• Identify production constraints and implement corrective actions to improve throughput.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Materials so schedules are executable and escalate shortages before they affect production.
• Support point-of-use inventory, Kanban, vendor-managed inventory and other Lean material strategies where appropriate.

Quality

• Build a culture where quality is owned at the point of manufacture and the next operation is treated as the customer.
• Ensure compliance with manufacturing standards, specifications, work instructions and quality procedures.
• Partner with Engineering to drive root-cause corrective action and reduce defects, rework, warranty exposure and cost of poor quality.

Lean and operational excellence

• Champion Lean Manufacturing using 5S, Standard Work, Visual Management, Kaizen and structured problem solving.
• Establish a disciplined management cadence of daily production meetings, visual boards, KPI reviews and structured follow-up.
• Ensure standard work is documented, followed and continuously improved.
• Drive measurable improvement in labor productivity, cycle time, throughput, material flow, space utilization and manufacturing cost.
• Lead automation and capital initiatives that improve safety, quality, productivity and cost.

Financial performance and cost

• Own the manufacturing operating budget and take part in the annual budget and monthly forecasts.
• Manage to labor, overhead and operating cost targets, including direct labor productivity, overtime and indirect labor.
• Ensure accuracy in both labor reporting and BOM usages
• WIP accuracy, and operational support for cycle counts and physical inventories.
• Partner with Finance to analyze manufacturing variances and carry out corrective actions.
• Prepare ROI justifications for capital requests and track whether completed projects deliver the promised return.

Maintenance and facilities

• Ensure preventive maintenance programs maximize equipment uptime and extend asset life.
• Improve utilization of equipment, facilities and manufacturing capacity.

Leadership and people development

• Lead, coach and develop managers, team leaders and employees across the operation.
• Set annual performance goals and development plans and hold leaders accountable for results.
• Build frontline leaders' capability in problem solving, waste elimination and employee accountability.
• Build organizational depth through hiring, succession planning and cross-training.
• Communicate regularly with employees about performance, company expectations, policies and priorities.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Manufacturing or another technical discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 10 years in manufacturing with a proven record of success and increasing responsibility.
• Minimum 5 years leading multi-site operations through managers and leaders.
• Demonstrated record of improving safety performance
• Lean Manufacturing experience or certification, with measurable results in efficiency improvement and cost reduction.
• Demonstrated P&L or operating budget accountability.
• Experience with ERP/MRP systems.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities at once.
• Willingness to live and work in the greater Louisville, KY area.

Preferred qualifications

• Trailer, truck body or similar fabrication, welding and assembly experience.
• Experience in high-mix, custom build-to-order manufacturing.
• MBA or other financial education.

Working conditions

This role works in both office and manufacturing plant settings, with exposure to noise, welding, painting and moving equipment. Required PPE must be worn on the production floor. The role regularly requires walking and standing for extended periods.

Employment is contingent on successful completion of a background check and drug screen.

Following receipt of a conditional offer of employment, candidates will be required to complete additional job-related screening processes as permitted or required by applicable law.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all applicants will be considered for employment without attention to their membership in any protected class. If you require any reasonable accommodation to complete your application or any part of the recruiting process, please email your request to [email protected], and please be sure to include the title and the location of the position for which you are applying.