Production Head - Medium Caliber

Lead and manage the overall operations of the Medium Caliber Manufacturing plant, ensuring optimal productivity, quality, safety, and cost-efficiency. The Plant Head is responsible for aligning plant performance with organizational goals by overseeing production, maintenance, quality control, supply chain, and workforce management, while driving continuous improvement and operational excellence.

Key Accountabilities

Operations Excellence:

• Driving lean digitalization, advanced automation, and operational transparency across all departments.
• Launch and oversee enterprise-level TPM, Six Sigma, and VSM initiatives that yield tangible impact on OEE, material waste, energy use, and rework percentages.
• Foster a culture of relentless improvement and innovation, with cross-functional CI cells, monthly kaizen showcases, and formal ROI tracking for improvement projects.

Manufacturing Technology:

• Drive plant-wide adoption of advanced and indigenous defence manufacturing technologies such as additive manufacturing, hybrid machining, robotics, and digital twins.
• Establish internal Centres of Excellence (CoEs) to pilot, validate, and scale new manufacturing technologies.

Supply Chain Management:

• Understands global supply chain complexities and resilience strategies.
• Drive strategic sourcing & supplier relationship management
• Implement crisis response mechanisms for supply disruptions including alternative routing, emergency contracting, and buffer stock strategies aligned to operational continuity needs.

Plant Safety & Security:

• Build and oversee an intelligent plant safety management system that uses real-time monitoring, predictive risk analysis, and IoT-enabled alerts for proactive intervention.
• Ensure compliance with all statutory, fire, chemical, and occupational health norms.
• Partner with internal security teams and external defence/security agencies to define and monitor physical access protocols, cyber-physical system security, and IP/data protection.

Quality

• Ensure consistent delivery of high-quality products by implementing robust quality systems, fostering a culture of quality ownership, and driving continuous improvement across all plant operations.
• Align quality goals with business objectives, reducing defects, enhancing customer satisfaction, and ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulatory requirements.

Leadership & People Management

• Lead the cultural and strategic setup of the plant into a world-class, high-performance defence manufacturing site.
• Build leadership depth and technical capabilities across all functions through a structured capability development roadmap and succession planning for key roles.
• Collaborate effectively with other functional leaders to align plant performance with broader organizational goals and influence strategic decision-making at the business level.
• Contribute to the Plant Manpower Budgeting & Planning w.r.t. Skills / Competencies / Organisation Structures.

Workplace Management:

• Ensure maintenance of all plant equipments with maintenance function, ensuring machine health check as per defined frequency and check list.
• Promote predictive maintenance and smart equipment integration to reduce unplanned downtimes and extend asset life for capital-intensive manufacturing lines.

Educational Qualification:

Must:

• BE in Chemical / Mechanical Engineering

Desirable:

• Certifications in Lean Six Sigma, TPM, Quality Management (e.g., AS9100 Lead Auditor).

Relevant Experience:

Must:

• > 20 years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience.
• Minimum 810 years in a plant leadership role with accountability for end-to-end manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and safety performance.
• Thorough knowledge of advanced production technologies (CNC, robotics, additive manufacturing), and plant digitization (MES, Industry 4.0).
• Proven expertise in leading operations excellence initiatives (TPM, Lean, Six Sigma), establishing compliant quality systems (AS9100, ISO 9001), and ensuring readiness for customer audits and factory acceptance tests (FAT).

Desirable:

• Ability to motivate, guide, and develop a team of production personnel.
• Understanding of the handling, and safety procedures related to explosives and ammunition.
• Understanding of defence manufacturing protocols (MIL-STD, DGAQA, DRDO norms).
• Leading set-up of greenfield manufacturing facility.