Job Description
Title: Production Supervisor
Classification/Job Grade: Salary
Location: 4001 Hwy 190 W
Department: Plant Operations
Supervised by: Plant Manager
Schedule: Night Shift
Job Summary:
The Production Supervisor oversees a team of production employees in a fast-paced, continuous-flow dairy manufacturing environment. This role is responsible for coordinating daily operations, maintaining safety and quality standards, monitoring production performance, and driving continuous improvement initiatives. The supervisor leads and develops team members, resolves operational issues, and ensures production goals are achieved while maintaining compliance with food safety, sanitation, and workplace safety requirements. Success in this role requires strong leadership, problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and the ability to foster a culture of accountability and teamwork.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
Key Responsibilities
- Lead a production team of coordinators, lead, operators and receivers.
- Works closely with other departments to maintain flow on production floor.
- Coordinate, monitor, and adjust daily production schedules to meet customer requirements, production targets, and company objectives.
- Communicate production priorities, schedule changes, and operational updates to supervisors, production leads, and team members.
- Provide leadership and direction for daily production operations, ensuring productivity, efficiency, and adherence to established workflows.
- Plan, assign, and oversee production work schedules and staffing requirements to meet operational demands.
- Maintain accurate production records, reports, inventory usage data, and operational documentation.
- Supervise raw material inventory levels and daily usage to ensure adequate supply and minimize waste.
- Collaborate with production, quality, warehouse, cooler, and distribution teams to ensure efficient product flow and operational effectiveness.
- Partner with the Quality Manager to ensure compliance with product quality standards, processing procedures, packaging requirements, handling practices, and storage controls.
- Monitor product quality and shelf-life conditions, coordinating with the Cooler Manager to address and communicate any quality concerns.
- Assist in resolving production delays, equipment malfunctions, material shortages, and other operational issues to minimize downtime.
- Ensure proper equipment start-up, shutdown, cleaning, sanitation, and maintenance procedures are performed according to company standards.
- Enforce compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), quality standards, company policies, and OSHA regulations.
- Promote workplace safety by enforcing procedures that minimize product loss, accidents, downtime, and regulatory non-compliance.
- Support continuous improvement initiatives by evaluating operational processes, production costs, quality performance, and recommending process enhancements.
- Coordinate internal and external resources as needed to meet production and operational requirements.
- Train, coach, and develop production employees to enhance performance, safety awareness, and operational effectiveness.
- Assist in managing employee relations matters, including attendance, performance management, corrective action, and disciplinary processes.
- Maintain a safe, clean, organized, and audit-ready work environment.
- Represent operations on company committees, including Safety, Operations, Quality, and other cross-functional teams.
- Perform other duties and special projects as assigned.
Requred Qualifications:
- Associate's Degree or Bachelor's Degree in Dairy Science, Food Science, or related field
- Minimum 4 years of manufacturing, production, or operations experience.
- Previous experience in dairy plant
- Previous experience in a perishable good industry
- Previous leadership, coordinating, or supervisory experience
- Knowledge of GMPs, SOPs, quality standards, and OSHA regulations.
Work Environment: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- While performing the duties of this job, the employee may be frequently exposed to moving mechanical parts and forklifts.
- The employee is occasionally exposed to wet / humid / cold conditions (non-weather).
- The noise level in the work environment may be loud.
- The employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, climb, and sit.
- The employee may occasionally be required to lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.
Prairie Farms, Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. This job overview is not all inclusive. In addition, reserves the right to amend this job overview at any time.