Production Manager Trainee

Position Overview

The Production Manager Trainee is an entry-to-mid-level leadership development position designed to prepare the employee to become a future Production Manager within ecoat.us. This role will receive hands-on training in production supervision, scheduling, process flow, safety, quality, employee leadership, equipment coordination, customer requirements, and performance management.

The Production Manager Trainee will work closely with the Plant Manager, Operations Manager, Production Manager, supervisors, leads, quality personnel, lab, maintenance, shipping, and customer service to learn how to manage daily plant operations effectively.

The goal of this position is to develop the knowledge, skills, and leadership habits necessary to manage people, production schedules, coating processes, safety expectations, quality requirements, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

Production Operations Training

• Learn daily production operations from receiving through processing, inspection, packing, and shipping.
• Understand the full lot lifecycle, including check-in, staging, racking, pretreatment, e-coat, topcoat, curing, inspection, packing, and shipment.
• Assist production leadership with coordinating workflow to meet customer due dates and production goals.
• Learn how to prioritize lots based on due dates, customer needs, process requirements, material readiness, and available labor.
• Monitor production activity throughout the shift and report issues affecting output, quality, or safety.
• Support supervisors and leads in ensuring production employees follow approved work instructions and procedures.
• Learn how to identify and remove production bottlenecks.
• Leadership Development
• Develop the ability to lead, coach, train, and hold production employees accountable.
• Learn how to communicate expectations clearly to operators, leads, and support departments.
• Assist with shift meetings, employee assignments, follow-up, and production updates.
• Observe and practice conflict resolution, employee coaching, and performance feedback.
• Learn how to promote teamwork, professionalism, safety, and accountability on the production floor.
• Support management in maintaining consistent standards across shifts and departments.
• Build confidence in making timely decisions under production pressure.

Safety Training and Compliance

• Learn and enforce company safety policies, PPE requirements, and safe work practices.
• Assist in identifying unsafe conditions, unsafe behaviors, and improvement opportunities.
• Participate in safety walks, incident reviews, corrective actions, and employee safety discussions.
• Understand proper procedures for handling chemicals, operating equipment, using cranes/forklifts, and working around coating lines.
• Support housekeeping, 5S, and organization efforts to maintain a safe work environment.
• Ensure workplace injuries, near misses, and safety concerns are reported promptly.

Quality and Process Understanding

• Learn customer quality requirements, coating specifications, inspection expectations, and acceptance criteria.
• Work with quality and lab personnel to understand coating defects, DFT readings, adhesion testing, cure checks, visual inspection, and other quality controls.
• Assist in investigating quality concerns, rework, rejects, nonconformances, and customer complaints.
• Learn how production practices impact first-pass yield, rework, on-time delivery, and customer satisfaction.
• Support corrective actions and help ensure production employees understand quality expectations.
• Learn the importance of following ISO 9001:2015 procedures and maintaining proper documentation.

Scheduling and Performance Management

• Learn how production schedules are built, adjusted, and communicated.
• Assist in tracking daily output, completed lots, WIP, overdue lots, downtime, labor needs, and production constraints.
• Monitor key production metrics and learn how to use data to make better operational decisions.
• Help identify risks to on-time delivery and communicate those risks to management.
• Learn how to balance labor, equipment capacity, customer priorities, and process limitations.
• Support daily production planning and end-of-shift reporting.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with production, lab, quality, maintenance, shipping, customer service, and management.
• Learn how each department affects production performance and customer satisfaction.
• Assist in communicating production needs, delays, quality issues, and equipment concerns.
• Support coordination between departments to keep work moving efficiently.
• Participate in meetings, process reviews, improvement projects, and customer-related production discussions as needed.

Maintenance and Equipment Awareness

• Learn the basic functions and limitations of major production equipment, including washers, tanks, ovens, rectifiers, conveyors, hoists, pumps, spray systems, filtration, cranes, and forklifts.
• Assist with reporting equipment issues and understanding how equipment downtime affects production.
• Work with maintenance to understand preventive maintenance needs and production priorities.
• Learn how to recognize early warning signs of equipment problems before they become major interruptions.

Continuous Improvement

• Participate in improvement projects focused on safety, quality, efficiency, organization, cost reduction, and on-time delivery.
• Learn basic problem-solving methods such as 5 Why, root cause analysis, corrective action, and standard work.
• Identify opportunities to improve workflow, reduce waste, prevent defects, and improve communication.
• Support implementation of new procedures, training, and process changes.
• Develop the habit of solving problems.

Skills to Be Developed

The Production Manager Trainee will be expected to actively develop the following skills:

Leadership Skills

• Employee coaching and training
• Clear communication
• Conflict resolution
• Accountability and follow-through
• Decision-making under pressure
• Team motivation
• Shift coordination
• Professional judgment

Production Management Skills

• Production planning and scheduling
• Lot prioritization
• Workflow management
• Labor planning
• Bottleneck identification
• Throughput improvement
• Downtime response
• Production reporting

Quality and Process Skills

• Understanding coating processes
• Recognizing coating defects
• Reading and following specifications
• Supporting inspections and corrective actions
• ISO 9001:2015 awareness
• Root cause analysis
• First-pass yield improvement
• Rework reduction

Safety Skills

• Safety policy enforcement
• Hazard recognition
• PPE compliance
• Incident reporting
• Chemical safety awareness
• Equipment safety
• Housekeeping and 5S

Business and Administrative Skills

• Data entry and record review
• KPI tracking
• Email and written communication
• Meeting participation
• Documentation control
• Customer priority awareness
• Basic cost and efficiency awareness