About the role

The Production Manager is accountable for all production output across Emesent’s product lines — Hovermap STX, A3D STX, GX1, RMA, and Accessories. You own the production floor: the people, the processes, the schedule execution, the quality of output, and the safety of the environment. When production delivers on plan, on time, and on quality, that is your success. When it doesn’t, you own the problem, the root cause, and the recovery.

This role works in close partnership with the Planning Manager (who owns demand-to-delivery planning and material availability) and the Quality Manager (who owns the QMS and assurance framework). The Production Manager’s job is to execute the plan with the materials provided to the quality standard required — and to communicate clearly and early when any of those inputs create a constraint.

The role requires someone who can hold two things in tension simultaneously: the strategic discipline to drive process improvement, build team capability, and invest in production systems; and the operational intensity to manage daily floor execution, solve problems in real time, and never lose sight of today’s schedule while working on tomorrow’s improvements. The most common failure mode in this role is allowing day-to-day firefighting to consume all bandwidth, starving process engineering and continuous improvement of attention. Managing that balance is a core competency, not an aspiration.

Key accountabilities

Production floor ownership & schedule execution
• Own daily and weekly production execution across all product lines: ensure build orders are completed on schedule, to specification, and within labour budget
• Manage the daily production cadence: morning stand-ups, work allocation, constraint identification, and end-of-day status capture
• Execute the production schedule provided by the Planning Manager; where conflicts or constraints arise, negotiate priorities and commit to revised dates with clear communication to affected stakeholders
• Maintain real-time visibility of production status: what is on track, what is at risk, what has slipped, and what the recovery plan is
• Own the interface between production and logistics for finished goods handover, packaging, and dispatch readiness
Process engineering & continuous improvement
• Own the production process for each product line: build sequences, work instructions, tooling, fixtures, jigs, and test procedures
• Drive continuous improvement on the production floor through lean methodology — 5S, value stream mapping, standard work, visual management, and waste elimination
• Maintain a prioritised CI pipeline: identify improvement opportunities, quantify the business case (labour savings, cycle time reduction, yield improvement), resource the work, and track delivery to completion
• Lead new product introduction (NPI) from a production readiness perspective: work with engineering to ensure designs are manufacturable, build processes are documented, tooling is in place, and technicians are trained before production handover
• Own build time standards and update them as processes mature; ensure labour estimates used for capacity planning and costing reflect actual production capability
• Protect process engineering bandwidth: this is not an activity that gets deprioritised when the floor is busy — it is the mechanism by which the floor gets less busy over time
Direct labour management & workforce development
• Lead, manage, and develop the production team: team leads and technicians across all product lines
• Own workforce planning: skills matrices, cross-training plans, shift coverage, and succession planning to eliminate single-person dependencies on any product line or process step
• Manage performance formally: set clear expectations, provide regular feedback, conduct performance reviews, and address underperformance directly and constructively
• Build team capability through structured training programs, progressive skill development, and deliberate cross-training — not just on-the-job absorption
• Manage labour allocation daily: assign technicians to build orders based on skill, priority, and availability; manage overtime, leave coverage, and contractor augmentation when required
• Own direct labour utilisation as a production metric: track productive hours against available hours, identify and reduce idle time, rework time, and non-value-add activity
Productivity & cost management
• Own production productivity targets: units per labour hour, build time per unit, and cost per unit across each product line
• Track and report OEE (or equivalent throughput metrics appropriate to Emesent’s build model), build cycle times, first-pass yield, and rework rates
• Deliver a minimum of one quantified process improvement per quarter with measurable impact on labour, time, or cost
• Manage production consumables and tooling costs within budget; flag variances early with explanation and corrective action
• Provide production cost inputs to finance for standard costing, variance analysis, and inventory
  valuation
Quality at the point of production
• Own first-pass yield and rework rates as production floor metrics — quality is built into the process, not inspected in after the fact
• Ensure work instructions, inspection points, and test procedures are followed consistently; address non-conformances immediately at the point of occurrence
• Partner with the Quality Manager on root cause analysis for production defects; own the
  implementation of corrective actions on the production floor
• Maintain production area housekeeping and 5S standards to support quality outcomes and safety
Safety & compliance
• Own the safety of the production environment: risk assessments, safe work procedures, incident
  investigation, and corrective action closure
• Maintain zero lost-time injuries as a non-negotiable standard; all incidents investigated and corrective actions closed within 5 business days
• Ensure production operations comply with applicable WHS legislation, export control requirements (where relevant to build processes), and any site-specific safety protocols
Stakeholder communication
• Provide daily production status visibility to the Planning Manager and leadership — what shipped, what’s in progress, what’s at risk
• Issue same-day communication on any constraint, delay, or material change that affects committed delivery dates, including impact assessment and recovery options
• Participate in the monthly S&OP cycle with production capacity inputs, constraint identification, and forward-looking throughput commitments
• Communicate clearly to non-manufacturing stakeholders — commercial, engineering, finance — translating production complexity into actionable information without jargon

Key requirements

Essential:
• 7–10 years in manufacturing operations, with at least 3 years directly managing a production team
  (leads, technicians, or operators) in a hardware build environment
• Demonstrated ownership of production output: schedule adherence, throughput, yield, and cost targets — not just participation in production, but accountability for results
• Strong process engineering foundation: ability to analyse and optimise build flows, identify bottlenecks, design fixtures/jigs, and implement process changes that deliver measurable productivity gains
• Practical lean manufacturing capability — 5S, value stream mapping, standard work, visual management — applied in a real production environment, not just classroom exposure
• Experience managing direct labour: workforce planning, shift scheduling, skills matrices, performance management, and building team capability through structured training and cross-training
• Working knowledge of ERP/MES systems for production execution (work orders, labour tracking, BOM consumption)
• Clear, structured communicator who can translate production complexity into actionable information for non-manufacturing stakeholders
Desirable:
• Experience in electronics hardware, sensor technology, robotics, or precision electromechanical assembly
• Hands-on Fishbowl ERP experience for work order management and production tracking
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or equivalent continuous improvement certification
• Experience with new product introduction (NPI) — transitioning products from engineering prototype to production-ready
• Exposure to regulated manufacturing environments (ISO 9001, defence, or export- controlled production)
• Experience scaling production from low-volume/high-mix to moderate-volume operations
• Trade qualification or engineering degree in mechanical, manufacturing, electrical, or mechatronics engineering

The added perks

• 9-day fortnight - every second Friday off

• Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP) - share in Emesent’s success

• Work alongside a passionate and collaborative team building world-leading technology

• Genuine learning and development opportunities including LinkedIn Learning access

• Employee Assistance Program

• One additional day of leave each year for your work anniversary

• Novated lease options