Lead Production Manager

Description

Job Description:

The Maritime System Division (MSD) of Leidos develops, integrates, and deploys advanced technology solutions that address existing and emerging maritime missions of national importance for a range of customers across the Department of Defense (DoD). Due to our continued growth, MSD is currently seeking a qualified, energetic, and experienced leader to fill the newly created position of Lead Production Manager in our Lynnwood, WA office. Current and future projects span advanced one-off concepts and prototype IR&D, up to low-rate initial production (LRIP) and programs of record for advanced electro-mechanical systems and subsystems for unmanned maritime platforms for the US Navy. This position requires US citizenship. An active Secret security clearance is preferred, but not required.

Primary Responsibilities

The successful applicant shall be responsible for achieving manufacturing excellence within the MSD. At first, this responsibility will focus locally on the production activities of our Lynnwood, WA location (“Site Excellence”). Over time, the responsibility will evolve to support and dovetail with Leidos’ efforts to move the entire organization up on the Gartner Maturity Model for manufacturing.

Role Milestones

• On day one, the successful applicant will arrive ready to provide immediate, supportive, and emotionally intelligent leadership for an outstanding group of experienced production staff. To start, she/he will get to know the production staff, engineering staff, and project managers who support our existing production work.
• By month one, she/he will have started to determine the key future needs and objectives along the path to manufacturing excellence, and begun identifying the resources needed to make the journey – this will eventually culminate in an executable manufacturing maturity roadmap.
• By month six, he/she will have taken major steps towards guiding the MSD towards manufacturing excellence – executing on the roadmap.

By year one, he/she will have made significant, quantifiable, and laudable inroads to achieving manufacturing excellence for the MSD.

Primary Responsibilities

In her/his daily activities, the successful applicant shall provide a “gold standard” of leadership to the production staff. He/She shall help manage their support of production procurement, manufacturing, assembly, and testing for multiple projects within MSD. In this capacity, she/he shall help to coordinate and prioritize work assigned to manufacturing by multiple project managers, manage and plan production resources accordingly, ensure that the work performed meets performance and quality requirements, and complies with schedule and cost objectives. In supporting this role, he/she will:

• Leadership:
  • Provide overall production leadership to production staff supporting the production of complex, high-reliability ocean hardware/software systems within an ISO 90001 environment. This includes supervisory duties, application of excellent communication skills (see Better Together below), mentoring and motivating, training and education necessary to perform assigned work, and advancing their personal career goals. In short, the successful applicant will seek to “co-elevate” with his/her team towards shared goals, rather than dictate.
  • Co-elevation Culture: Seek to understand the needs of each production team member by actively listening, openly soliciting candid feedback, withholding judgement, and helping each team member address weaknesses and leverage individual strengths.
  • Stewardship Ethos: Serve the needs of the production staff. Advocate on their behalf. Takes personal responsibility for shortcomings, and openly celebrates successes.
• Ownership:
  • Own overall responsibility for production performance for one-off concept and prototype IR&D up to LRIP production projects, including technical compliance, schedule, quality, cost, and customer satisfaction.
  • Own responsibility for production environment safety and its improvement.
  • Own responsibility for production staff performance and their improvement.
  • Own responsibility for production facility infrastructure and its improvement.
  • Own responsibility for process implementation and process improvement.
  • Own responsibility for progress towards manufacturing excellence.
• Collaboration:
  • Collaborate and proactively work with project managers and engineering throughout the project lifecycle to gain an understanding of production-related deliverable and milestone objectives on each of their projects, co-develop and maintain a project-specific production schedule for each, inform them of production status, set realistic expectations, and define the production resources required to meet project objectives.
  • Collaborate and proactively work with all Leidos personnel, across all functional areas, including quality assurance, planning, purchasing, engineering, configuration management, inventory control, material control, etc. to support on-going and future production projects. This may include supporting business-wide financial and staff planning, as well as involvement in capture efforts.
• Communication:
  • Communicate production needs, limitations, and opportunities for improvement up the organizational chain.
  • Communicate and administers production-related policies and best practices.
  • Communicate effectively and professionally with customers and suppliers.
  • Champion MSS Lynnwood’s production capabilities and personnel.
• Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Controlling (PEMC of the PMP framework):
  • Seek to understand the actual, projected, and potential production needs of each project, and to integrate that understanding into an evolving, and overarching master production plan (MPP).
  • Track the status and “health” of the production-related activities for each project through the lens of the production resources overall.
• Management: This role is expected to be a supervisory position (i.e. administrative management in addition to technical direction). In this role, the Maritime Systems Lead Production Manager will perform a full range of managerial duties for employees supervised, including recruitment, salary administration, performance reviews, counseling, hiring and retention decisions, and employee development.

Basic Qualifications

• Requires a BA/BS or equivalent experience and 5+ years or prior relevant experience or Masters with 3+ years of prior relevant experience. Generally has 2+ years of experience supervising or leading teams or projects.
• A high school diploma/GED may be accepted with exceptional qualifications.
• Commensurate with primary responsibilities described above
• Prefer 7-10 years of manufacturing and production experience with at least 5 years spent in a supervisory position.
• A strong technical background in electronic assembly and/or electromechanical (hardware) assembly manufacturing is highly desirable.
• Previous knowledge/experience in production planning, quality control techniques and industrial/production engineering preferred. Knowledge of manufacturing methods and process improvement procedures.
• Leadership experience in multidisciplinary manufacturing environment. Strong mentoring and motivational abilities. Ability to resolve conflict among diverse groups and develop teamwork and cooperation among multiple departments.
• Strong organizational skills with attention to detail. Ability to plan, prioritize and organize work without close supervision; ability to effectively handle multiple projects with a record of accomplishment of successful project completion; and ability to remain positive and effective under pressure.
• Strong, effective, and professional communication (written/verbal) and interpersonal skills to deal with all levels of staff, management, and internal and external contacts.
• Ability to take initiative in troubleshooting of issues; creative in determining approach or action to take in non-routine situations.
• Budget management experience.
• Experience with material requirements planning (MRP) tools, such as Costpoint ERP.
• Experience developing, managing, and adhering to ISO 9001:2008 processes.
• Must be competent in use of Microsoft Office tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Microsoft Project.
• Ability to obtain a Secret security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Expert Costpoint ERP user.
• Experience working in any of the production staff roles, whether technical, managerial, or administrative.
• Experience working in government contracting environment.
• Experience with maritime and/or underwater systems.

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.