Senior Vice President, Operations - Duluth, Minnesota

Company/Organization: Cirrus Aircraft

Position: Management

Job Type: Permanent

Posted: 4/11/2024 8:25:14 PM

Description:

ABOUT THE JOB
As a key member of the Cirrus Executive Team, the Senior Vice President of Operations (SVP) is the primary results-oriented operational leader guiding the manufacturing and supply chain teams in delivering safe, high quality, on-time, and at-cost aircraft to our customers. The Senior Vice President of Operations has tactical and strategic responsibilities ensuring near-term production goals are achieved while charting a course for mid and long-range growth and improvement. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of driving operational efficiency and operational excellence, implementing best practices in manufacturing and supply chain strategies, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and employee engagement to ensure efficiency, quality, and scalability.

The Senior Vice President of Operations actively engages in and contributes to shaping the overarching business strategy. By leveraging expertise and anticipating future trends in current and emerging technologies, they play a pivotal role in influencing the design of operations and manufacturing processes. Additionally, the SVP Operations provides key leadership engagement in business process re-engineering initiatives (such as the Cirrus Operating System) aiming to establish new competitive advantages for the organization. The SVP Operations will also engage with the Executive Team on corporate strategy, mid-range planning, and annual operating planning.

In collaboration with the VP Manufacturing, the SVP Operations has overall leadership responsibility for all primary aspects of the multi-line manufacturing and assembly process including Composite Fabrication at our Grand Forks, ND Plant and at our Duluth, MN plants, Sub-Assembly Operations (Facility 5 Plant), Machining Operations (Metalworks Plant), Bonded and Aircraft Assembly Operations (Main Plant), Prep-Paint-Detailing Operations (Finishing Center Plant), and Flight Line Operations (Main Plant). In partnership with the VP of Supply Chain, the SVP Operations is also responsible for all aspects of the Supply Chain process including Shipping and Logistics, Production Planning and Control, Material Inventory Management, Handling, and Control, Procurement, and Strategic Sourcing.

The SVP Operations reports to the President, Innovation Operations with accountability for the performance management system and results in the areas of safety, people, quality, delivery, and financial metrics for the Operations organization.

The position is located in Duluth, MN. As the home to our corporate headquarters, Duluth is a four-season city on the western tip of Lake Superior and was voted Best Town by Outside Magazine. The splendor of the largest freshwater lake in the world offers a multitude of outdoor activities for adventure or rejuvenation. The North Shore lifestyle is known its year-round activities, including bicycle and snowmobile trails, kayaking, rock climbing, fishing, hiking, golfing, sailing and skiing. And as a top employer in the area, Cirrus Aircraft was recently named ldquo;Best Overall Large Company to Work for in the Northlandrdquo; and ldquo;Best Workplace Culturerdquo; by the Duluth News Tribune readers.

ABOUT YOU
Strategy

• Work integrally with the executive leadership team in the development of corporate strategy and product plans meeting the long-term goals of the company.
  Create a vision for the operations and manufacturing strategies and future-state processes, working with the Executive team and business partners, to identify differentiating manufacturing capabilities, efficiencies and solutions creating competitive advantages.
• Develop and maintain a mid-range and long-range planning roadmap in alignment with the corporate portfolio, product plans, and demand forecasts. Collaborate with the Program Planning Office (PPO), Business Development function, and Marketing Product Line Management in the overall planning process.
• Help determine employment, capital investment parameters, priorities and risks for enterprise-wide operations and manufacturing initiatives to maximize return on investment.
• Flow down corporate strategy and objectives resulting in Annual Budget Operating Plan for the area and associated teams.
  Collaborate with other senior leaders to ensure seamless integration of operations with sales, marketing, and other functional areas.

Operational Excellence

• Lead efforts to streamline and enhance end-to-end manufacturing operational processes to improve safety, quality, delivery, efficiency and costs.
• Implement and manage key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and improve operational performance.
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement, identifying opportunities for innovation and efficiency gains.
• Implement best practices and stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies.

Leadership

• Create and drive the Operations and Manufacturing vision, strategy, and roadmap, ensure its integration with the enterprises strategy and lead the Operations team in effective execution and delivery.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with suppliers and vendors to ensure a reliable and cost-effective supply chain.
• Implement inventory management strategies to optimize stock levels while meeting customer demand.
• Ensure transparency and collaboration between the operations organization other functional areas.
• Act as a champion and change agent in leading the organizational changes required to create, adopt and sustain enterprise manufacturing capabilities.

Team Development

• Develop and maintain a workforce plan with the appropriate mix of business knowledge, technical skills and competencies that balance the needs between growing the agility required to achieve manufacturing and Operations objectives and ensuring the core functions are reliable, stable and efficient.
• Foster a business-oriented culture in manufacturing including innovation, value creation, transparency and accountability.
• Develop and maintain effective organizational strategies, policy, and procedure, building a capable and effective leadership team.
• Create meaningful career path and skill progressions for people, establishing succession plans with purposeful development of high-potential employees.

Manufacturing Operations

• Establish metrics for managing effectiveness and for measuring the impact of on the business and customers.
• Maintain oversight of all Operations Manufacturing projects in alignment with Enterprise standards, ensuring that commitments are properly planned, staffed, monitored and reported.
• Establish and enforce manufacturing policies, internal controls, processes, development standards and methodologies.
• Monitor the industry for developments in manufacturing operations; evaluate and implement relevant new tools and service management frameworks.
• Review, recommend, and oversee all vendors and managed service agreements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in engineering or technical discipline required
• 20+ years of operational, or combined technical and operational, experience required
• 15+ years of leadership experience required
• Executive level leadership experience required including administrative, strategy development, and financial oversight experience required

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep production operations experience required with strong continuous improvement / lean manufacturing leadership capability
• Conversant in materials and logistics aspects of supply chain and working knowledge of procurement related processes and practices
• International business experience required
• Familiarity with FAA-related certification and production approval holder process experience preferred.
  Deep understanding of current and emerging technologies and how other enterprises are employing them to drive digital business and how they may be applied to Cirrus.
• Exceptional leadership skills with the ability to develop and communicate an information and technology vision that contributes to the business strategy.
• Ability to identify and leverage resources internally and externally to the enterprise to enhance capabilities that drive digital business.
• Ability to drive people, process and technology change in a dynamic and complex operating environment.
• Deep understanding of current and emerging technologies and how other enterprises are employing them to drive digital business and how they may be applied to Cirrus.
• Exceptional leadership skills with the ability to develop and communicate an information and technology vision that contributes to the business strategy.
• Strong business acumen, including industry, domain-specific knowledge of the company.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain digital concepts and technologies to business leaders, and business concepts to the IT workforce.
• Exceptional influence and negotiation skills.
• Ability to identify and leverage resources internally and externally to the enterprise to enhance capabilities that drive digital business
• Ability to drive people, process and technology change in a dynamic and complex operating environment
• Strong business acumen, including industry, domain-specific knowledge of the company.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain digital concepts and technologies to business leaders, and business concepts to the
• IT workforce
• Exceptional influence and negotiation skills.

Competencies

Building Relationships

• Maintains and forms alliances with recognized experts and decision makers.
• Partners with a wide circle, involves them in generating mutual beneficial opportunities and negotiating win-win outcomes.
• Represents the organization on strategic issues impacting multiple organizations.
• Draws on the wide base of relationships inside and outside the work environment

Change Leadership

• Reviews, sponsors, approves recommendations for enterprise-wide change programs that impact cross-functional key processes.
• Partners with other business leaders to identify opportunities for significant technology and process enhancements.
• Lobbies for change that impacts strategic business direction.
• Evaluates progress against key performance drivers and assesses organizational opportunities and risks.
• Solicits the support of business leaders in planning and spearheading enterprise change activities

Influences Others

• Thinks through an executes a variety of useful planned actions (both direct and indirect influence) as part of a sequenced, multistep, complex campaign for gaining support and ownership from others.
• Deliberately uses information or concepts to implement and influence strategy for multiple audiences, in high-risk situations involving differing perspectives, in order to reach a common goal or have a positive impact for the organization

Strategic Thinking

• Takes a holistic system perspective.
• Envisions, compares and contrasts multiple potential long-range enterprise futures.
• Empathizes with multiple points of view.
• Challenges planning assumptions
• Develops, research and tests hypotheses.
• Facilitates the creation and exploration of scenarios.
• Identifies trends and inconsistencies.
• Applies creativity and critical analysis in designing and creating organization commitment for new objectives
• Approves, sponsors and spearheads the implementation of strategic initiatives, security the support of senior management

Financial Acumen

• Interprets and applies key financial indicators to make better business decisions.
• Fosters accountability for making good financial decisions;
• Provides guidance to help the team make astute decisions.
• Summarizes financial performance data and explains implications for the organization.

ABOUT CIRRUS AIRCRAFT
Cirrus Aircraft is the recognized global leader in personal aviation and the maker of the best-selling SR Series piston aircraft and the Vision Jettrade;, the worlds first single engine Personal Jet and recipient of the 2017 Robert J. Collier Trophy. Founded in 1984, the company has redefined performance, comfort and safety in aviation with innovations like the Cirrus Airframe Parachute Systemreg; (CAPSreg;) ndash; the first FAA-certified whole-airframe parachute safety system included as standard equipment on an aircraft. To date, worldwide flight time on Cirrus aircraft has passed nine million hours and over 170 people have returned home safely to their families as a result of the inclusion of CAPSreg; as a standard feature on all Cirrus aircraft. The company has three locations in the United States, located in Duluth, Minnesota, Grand Forks, North Dakota and Knoxville, Tennessee. Find out more at www.cirrusaircraft.com.

OUR BENEFITS
Cirrus offers a competitive benefits package that includes: health, dental, life, short and long-term disability insurance, flexible spending account, 401K retirement savings plan, voluntary vision, Employee Referral Incentive Program, vacation and holiday pay. Additionally, all employees enjoy a discount at the company store and exclusive discounts from our world-class partners, like Garmin, Bose, ATT, Microsoft, Fastenal and more.

LIFE AT CIRRUS
As a leading manufacturer of personal aircraft, Cirrus is dedicated to the advancement of general aviation. The Cirrus Flying Club offers employees and their family members the unique opportunity to obtain their private pilots license in the comfort of a Cirrus or rent a Cirrus for an impromptu adventure at a greatly reduced rate.

At Cirrus, we are committed to investing in the future of our employees and company by offering professional development and career progression opportunities that include onboarding, recurrent and area-specific training, talent acceleration and leadership development, continuing education, and tuition assistance programs.

We also engage employees by offering several employee and family events throughout the year, as well as the opportunity to take part in activity clubs and community events. From holiday and special occasion celebrations, to local runs and barbecues, our team has the opportunity to connect with each other, the community and our customers. We also give back to our communities by providing all employees a paid Community Day each year!

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this position. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. Work beyond 40 hours per week may be required.

Cirrus is dedicated to a drug free work environment promoting equal employment opportunity. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, national origin, color, age, disability, religion, pregnancy, veteran status, marital and family status, sexual orientation, receipt of public assistance, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

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