Production Supervisor at Nutri Nuts and Fruits Limited

Role Purpose

• To lead safe, efficient and consistent shift production across nut roasting, cooling, seasoning, packaging and related processing operations. The Production Supervisor converts the production plan into daily execution, coordinates people and equipment, controls yield and downtime, and ensures every batch is produced in accordance with approved specifications, food safety requirements and traceability controls.

Key Responsibilities

Production Planning and Shift Execution

• Translate the approved production plan into daily and shift schedules, including product sequence, staffing, equipment allocation, materials and expected output.
• Confirm line readiness before start up, including availability of released raw materials, packaging materials, approved specifications, clean equipment, utilities and competent operators.
• Conduct shift briefings, assign responsibilities and communicate production priorities, quality requirements, safety risks and changeover expectations.
• Monitor hourly output, line balance, work in progress, constraints and completion against plan, taking timely corrective action when performance falls below target.
• Coordinate orderly shift handovers covering production status, product holds, breakdowns, open deviations, material balances and outstanding actions.

Nut Roasting and Process Control

• Provide hands on technical oversight of commercial nut roasting operations, including continuous hot air roasting, and ensure operators follow approved product recipes and roast profiles.
• Verify the correct product, batch, temperature zones, airflow, feed rate, bed depth, residence time and cooling conditions before and during each run.
• Work with Quality to confirm first off approval and in process checks for roast colour, flavour, texture, moisture, defects and other specified characteristics.
• Identify and correct process variation that may cause under roasting, over roasting, scorching, uneven colour, excessive breakage, rancidity risk or loss of yield.
• Ensure roasted product is protected from moisture pickup, contamination, allergen cross contact and excessive holding time before packaging.

People Supervision and Capability

• Prepare shift rosters, monitor attendance and timekeeping, allocate labour efficiently and escalate staffing gaps that threaten production continuity.
• Coach operators on standard operating procedures, machine controls, hygiene, quality checks, safe work practices and accurate record completion.
• Monitor individual and team performance, provide timely feedback, document performance or conduct concerns and support fair corrective action with People and Culture.
• Confirm that only trained and authorised employees operate production machinery and that relief operators are competent before assignment.
• Promote teamwork, respectful conduct, accountability, effective problem solving and continuous improvement across the shift.

Food Safety, Quality and Traceability

• Enforce Good Manufacturing Practices, sanitation procedures, allergen controls, line clearance, foreign material controls and the approved HACCP or food safety plan.
• Ensure materials and products are correctly identified by batch or lot, physically segregated where required and traceable throughout roasting, packing, rework and storage.
• Stop production and notify Quality when product, process, hygiene, labelling, coding, metal detection or packaging results fall outside specification.
• Protect the status of held, rejected, rework and released materials and prevent unauthorised use or movement.
• Support traceability exercises, internal audits, customer audits, investigations, product withdrawal or recall activities and corrective action implementation.

Equipment Reliability, Safety and Housekeeping

• Ensure pre start inspections, guards, interlocks, emergency stops, extraction systems and other safety controls are checked and functional before operation.
• Coordinate autonomous maintenance, cleaning, lubrication and approved minor adjustments, and raise work requests for defects requiring Engineering support.
• Record and escalate downtime promptly, support fault diagnosis and verify safe handback of equipment after maintenance.
• Enforce lockout and tagout, permit controls, safe isolation, fire prevention, hot surface precautions and incident reporting requirements.
• Maintain orderly work areas through 5S, effective waste removal and prevention of oil, product, packaging or dust accumulation.

Yield, Cost Control and Continuous Improvement

• Reconcile raw materials, packaging, finished goods, rework, rejects and waste for each shift and investigate unexplained variances.
• Control giveaway, breakage, product loss, rework, film waste, utilities and overtime within approved standards.
• Analyse recurring downtime, quality defects, safety observations and output losses, then lead practical corrective and preventive actions.
• Participate in trials, process validation, new product introduction and improvement projects without compromising food safety or traceability.
• Prepare accurate and timely shift production reports and escalate material risks, quality risks, equipment risks and resource constraints.

Decision Authority and Escalation

• Stop a production line or machine where there is an immediate food safety, quality, safety or equipment risk.
• Reallocate trained employees, sequence production within the approved plan and authorise routine shift adjustments within delegated limits.
• Quarantine suspected product pending Quality assessment, while preserving identification and traceability.
• Escalate critical breakdowns, repeated process deviations, material shortages, serious conduct issues, injuries, contamination risks and any potential product recall concern immediately.

Minimum Qualifications and Experience

Education and Training

• Diploma or degree in Food Science, Food Technology, Production Management, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline.
• Training in Good Manufacturing Practices and HACCP is required. Training in occupational safety, fire safety, first aid, 5S or lean manufacturing is an added advantage.

Experience

• At least three to five years of production experience in food manufacturing, including at least two years in a supervisory or team leadership position.
• Demonstrable hands on experience in commercial nut roasting is mandatory. Experience with continuous hot air roasting systems is strongly preferred.
• Experience supervising integrated roasting, cooling, seasoning and automated packaging operations in a high hygiene environment.

Knowledge, Skills and Competencies

• Strong understanding of roast process variables, product quality, yield, food safety, allergens, traceability and production documentation.
• Ability to read and interpret production plans, standard operating procedures, product specifications, machine data and shift performance reports.
• Practical leadership, workforce planning, coaching, conflict management and fair performance management capability.
• Structured problem solving, sound judgement under pressure and disciplined escalation of risk.
• Good written and verbal communication, numerical accuracy and basic competence in spreadsheets or production systems.