Head Plant Operations (Heavy Engineering / Crane Manufacturing)

Job Location: Lonand, Satara

Experience Required: Min 20 years to 28 years

Preferred Industry Experience: Heavy Engineering / Heavy Machineries / Cranes / EOT Cranes / Gantry Cranes etc.

Role & responsibilities

• The role will be responsible for overseeing end-to-end operations at the Lonand Plant, ensuring alignment of manufacturing processes with organizational strategy, business objectives, and customer requirements.
• Ensure that manufacturing strategies and processes are in place to meet overall business objectives.
• Create and implement best-practice manufacturing vision, strategy, policies, processes, and procedures to aid and improve business performance.
• Translate business strategy into annual performance goals, departmental objectives, and measurable metrics.
• Take ownership of manufacturing policies, guidelines, and associated documentation.
• Contribute actively to the formulation of the overall business strategy and annual budget process.
• Ensure smooth execution of production processes to achieve efficiency, productivity, and quality targets.
• Oversee plant budgeting, expenditure monitoring, and cost-control initiatives to maximize profitability.
• Review and analyze key metrics including productivity, capacity utilization, costs, and quality parameters.
• Ensure manufacturing feasibility of new customer requirements and support new business initiatives and projects.
• Handle escalations related to customer complaints, quality issues, machine breakdowns, and plant-level emergencies.
• Implement corrective and preventive actions to minimize operational risks and improve plant reliability.
• Report regularly to the leadership team on manufacturing activities, providing accurate and timely updates on KPIs.
• Establish a culture of accountability with performance tracking across all levels of plant operations.
• Foster a high-performance, safety-first, and quality-driven working environment within the manufacturing function.
• Lead, coach, and develop plant teams to ensure strong succession planning and talent development.
• Build cross-functional collaboration to achieve operational excellence and business goals.
• Ability to drive change, continuous improvement, and high-performance culture.

Preferred candidate profile

• Bachelors degree in Engineering (mandatory); Masters in Engineering preferred.
• Minimum 20 years of experience in heavy equipment manufacturing, with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• Strong expertise in plant operations (production, quality, maintenance, safety).
• Proven track record in manufacturing strategy, process optimization & cost control.
• Solid knowledge of quality systems, compliance & statutory requirements.
• Experience in budgeting, forecasting & financial management.
• Familiar with Lean, Six Sigma & continuous improvement practices.
• Strong leadership, people development & succession planning skills
• Ability to translate strategy into operational KPIs and drive performance
• Skilled in change management, crisis handling & cross-functional collaboration.
• Excellent communication, decision-making & stakeholder management