Head of Production - London - £Stand Out Salary

A leading printing company is looking for an outstanding candidate, respected and recognised as a leader and motivator of people, to head up its production team. Our client works with many esteemed clients, producing time-sensitive campaigns, and we are looking for someone who is flexible, able to cope under pressure, and manage multiple projects at one time.

The role of Head of Production is a critical position that influences both the customer experience and bottom-line performance of the business. It manages, leads, and motivates the production environment to ensure that the highest standards are achieved and maintained.

Responsibilities:

• Manage the output across the production department
• Manage, lead, motivate and support the team within a time-sensitive and demanding environment. This will include development plans for all direct reports, including production management and department managers.
• Build and maintain relations with agency providers and temporary employees to ensure continuity.
• Lead the day to day operations of all production units to include; scheduling, print, despatch, warehousing
• Maintain health and safety standards within production.
• Manage metrics and time to achieve productivity targets, continuous improvements, increase accuracy and deliver excellent customer service.
• Ensure that all production departments operate within agreed budgets.
• Work closely with support teams (HR, Financial, IT) on staffing plans, schedules and performance levels.
• Drive continuous process improvement.
• Implement change and lead cross-functional improvement initiatives
• Develop business plans and cases to support capex related investments.
• Regularly review and advise on production/commercial risks, and have a solutions orientated approach
• Ensure that the business is operated to the highest standards in line with our accreditations.
• Implement systems for reviewing all operating costs to ensure that they are consistently in line with revenue
• Ensure that all agreed control procedures are followed through in each department
• Agree objectives in line with business strategy and values

Skills & Attributes:

• Drives production and commercial optimisation
• Respected and recognised as a leader and motivator of people
• Customer management at board and operational level
• Thinks smart
• In-depth knowledge or ability to quickly understand Digital print and Litho print
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• The ability to deal with ambiguity and to work well with all levels of employees
• Ability to implement and enhance improvement processes (Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen)
• Experience of operational structuring

Experience:

• Have experience in managing and leading large and diverse teams in a print production-based environment.
• Ability to demonstrate production operations excellence, with an impressive people and metrics lead track record in a fast-paced production, manufacturing, print or logistics based environment.
• Proven aptitude for commercial capability.
• Have the ability to achieve results and drive print production through efficiency and process improvement.
• Ability to manage detail, establish root cause and be able to extract and analyse data.
• Must be able to demonstrate effective problem solving and analytical capability.
• Thrive on change, inclined to operate with flexibility and commit the time required to get the job done.
• Able to demonstrate a pragmatic approach to problem solving.
• Knowledge of Lean, Six Sigma and Kaizen methodologies would be highly advantageous.