IT Site Operations Manager

Job Summary

The IT Manager – Plant Operations is responsible for the reliability, availability, and continuous improvement of information technology services supporting manufacturing operations across three production plants. The role ensures daily uptime of shop-floor systems, leads and develops site IT staff, and serves as a trusted partner to plant leadership to enable safe, efficient, and uninterrupted production. The position acts as the primary IT operations leader for assigned plants, balancing tactical execution with strategic alignment to enterprise IT standards and manufacturing priorities.

Job Responsibilities

This role is accountable for end-to-end plant IT operations, including:

• Ensure production uptime of shop-floor systems (Critical Operations Ownership)
  • Own the availability and performance of manufacturing IT/OT services (e.g., MES/SCADA interfaces, industrial PCs, label/scan/traceability, plant network, shop-floor applications) to prevent and minimize production disruptions.
• Lead incident response and restore service quickly (Major Incident Management)
  • Run the escalation bridge for plant-impacting outages, coordinate cross-functional recovery (IT/OT, vendors, operations, engineering), and communicate status, ETA, and workarounds to plant leadership.
• Partner with plant leadership to align IT priorities with production needs
  • Translate operational priorities into IT execution plans, participate in plant operating rhythms (tier meetings/production reviews), and ensure technology decisions support safety, quality, throughput, and cost.
• Drive continuous improvement and problem management
  • Use data and root-cause discipline to eliminate repeat incidents, standardize processes, and improve reliability and user experience over time.
• Execute change with production-grade control
  • Plan and deliver changes, upgrades, and deployments in live manufacturing environments using disciplined change control to minimize risk and downtime.
• Manage resources and service partners
  • Balance urgent operational needs with strategic work; manage staffing, vendor support, and budgets across multiple sites with transparency and rigor.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Build trusted relationships with Plant Managers and functional leaders; influence priorities and decisions.
• Take end-to-end accountability for plant IT uptime; ensure disciplined execution of incident, problem, and change processes.
• Lead calmly under pressure; make fast, high-quality decisions during outages and coordinate cross-functional recovery.
• Apply systems thinking across IT/OT and manufacturing processes; anticipate downstream impacts and prevent failures.
• Communicate status, risk, and tradeoffs with clarity and brevity; tailor messaging for operators, plant leadership, and enterprise IT executives.
• Coach, develop, and retain high-performing site teams; clarify expectations and promote accountability and engagement.

Work Environment & Travel

• Primary work location: Plant/site-based with regular presence on the shop floor to support operations.
• Travel: Regular travel between assigned plants; occasional travel for enterprise IT planning and vendor engagement (frequency varies by need).
• Schedule: Must support production operations and may participate in on-call/after-hours major incident response.

Education Requirements

Education Specifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Computer Science, or related technical discipline is Required

Experience Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Experience leading and mentoring distributed teams, including outsourced resources, with consistent service delivery across regions.
• Strong understanding of plant IT environments, including MES, industrial PCs, production networks, barcode/labeling systems, and manufacturing applications that directly impact uptime.
• Proven ability to lead major incidents, restore service quickly, perform root cause analysis, and implement permanent fixes to prevent repeat production disruptions.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with Plant Managers, Operations, Engineering, Quality, and Maintenance leaders to align IT execution with production, safety, and quality priorities.
• Experience managing the interaction between IT infrastructure, operational technology (OT), and manufacturing processes, anticipating downstream impacts of issues and changes.
• Experience executing system changes, upgrades, and deployments in live manufacturing environments using disciplined change control to minimize risk and downtime.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting multi-site manufacturing operations and 24x7 production environments.
• Familiarity with industrial networking, shop-floor endpoint management, and plant cybersecurity practices.
• Experience with service management practices (incident/problem/change), operational metrics, and continuous improvement methods.