Plant Manager at Unga Holding

Role Purpose:

• The Plant Manager is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership to ensure the safe, efficient, and profitable operation of the manufacturing plant. The role has end-to-end accountability for achieving production, financial, and operational performance targets by optimizing plant profitability, asset reliability, supply chain integration, quality, safety, and people performance.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Financial Accountability (Enhance Plant Operations)

• Own the overall profitability of the Plant by delivering agreed financial targets including operating profit, production cost, and Earning Before Income Tax (EBIT) contribution.
• Develop, manage, and control the Plant's annual operating (OPEX) and capital (CAPEX) budgets.
• Drive cost optimization initiatives across labour, raw materials, utilities, maintenance, logistics, and overheads without compromising safety or quality.
• Monitor production cost per metric ton and implement corrective actions to improve cost competitiveness.
• Lead financial performance reviews and implement actions to close budget variances.

Supply Chain Integration

• Lead the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process at Plant level to ensure alignment between production, procurement, inventory, and customer demand. 
• Collaborate with Procurement to optimize supplier performance, raw material availability, and inventory costs. 
• Partner with Commercial teams to ensure customer service levels and production priorities are aligned with business requirements. 
• Optimize inventory turnover while minimizing obsolete and slow-moving inventory. 
• Ensure production planning supports business growth while maximizing plant capacity utilization.

Data-Driven Performance Management

• Develop and monitor Plant performance dashboards. 
• Drive daily, weekly, and monthly performance reviews using operational KPIs. 
• Conduct root cause analysis on production losses, downtime, quality deviations, customer complaints, and cost overruns. 
• Utilize data analytics to identify trends and drive informed operational decisions.
• Ensure actions arising from performance reviews are implemented and tracked to closure

Asset Reliability Management

• Develop and implement preventive and predictive maintenance strategies. 
• Drive equipment reliability programmes that maximize Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). 
• Develop long-term asset replacement and lifecycle management plans. 
• Improve Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) while reducing Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). 
• Ensure maintenace projects improve plant reliability and production capability.

Energy & Sustainability

• Lead initiatives to reduce energy, water, steam, compressed air, and fuel consumption. 
• Drive utility cost optimization programmes. 
• Champion waste reduction, recycling, and environmental sustainability initiatives. 
• Ensure compliance with environmental regulations and corporate sustainability targets. 
• Improve overall resource utilization across the plant.

Risk Management & Business Continuity

• Develop and maintain the Plant Risk Register. 
• Conduct operational risk assessments and implement mitigation plans. 
• Lead emergency preparedness and crisis response programmes. 
• Ensure Business Continuity Plans are regularly reviewed and tested. 
• Protect the plant from operational, regulatory, financial and supply chain risks.

Leadership & Culture

• Foster a high-performance culture built on accountability, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement. 
• Drive employee engagement initiatives that improve productivity and retention. 
• Build leadership capability through coaching and mentoring. 
• Develop succession plans for critical roles within the Plant. 
• Promote a culture aligned with business values and ethical standards.

Continuous Improvement

• Lead Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, TPM, and PaTaMu initiatives to improve productivity, quality, safety, and cost efficiency. 
• Deliver measurable annual cost savings through continuous improvement projects. 
• Improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Yield, Waste Reduction, and Labour Productivity through structured improvement initiatives

Stakeholder Management

• Build effective relationships with customers, suppliers, contractors, regulators, auditors, and government agencies. 
• Represent the Plant during customer audits and regulatory inspections. 
• Ensure contractors comply with safety, quality, and operational standards. 
• Collaborate with corporate functions including Finance, HR, Procurement, Supply Chain, Commercial, Engineering, and Quality to achieve business objectives.

Job Requirements
Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering/Food Science or related field.
• Minimum eight (8) years’ experience in production management and plant operations, four (4) of which should be at senior management level.
• Knowledge of production planning and control with ERP – Understanding of SAP production module an added advantage.
• Understanding of statutory and regulatory requirements in feed milling operations.
• Good understanding of Food Safety Management Systems and experience in their application in the food industry - Knowledge and good understanding of ISO 22000
• Basic knowledge of milling principles and equipment is preferred
• Good understanding of Continual Improvement Methodology
• Good understanding of Financial Management
• Good understanding of Supply Chain Operations and Management
• Computer proficiency in Ms Office suite of applications.