Plant Technical Manager

Houston, TX, USA|Onsite

Job Overview

Employment Type

Full-time

Work Schedule

Standard Hours

Benefits

Medical

Dental

Vision

Life insurance

401k plan

employee wellness program

Paid Time Off

Job Description

Graham Packaging is a leader in sustainable packaging manufacturing, renowned for its commitment to people, planet, and core company values. The company produces innovative packaging solutions that are integrated into everyday life, from kitchen products to laundry essentials, reflecting their expansive reach and significant role within the packaging industry. As a values-driven organization, Graham Packaging fosters a culture known as the Blue Culture, which emphasizes collaboration, integrity, respect, and continuous improvement. This culture supports an engaged, diverse workforce that thrives in a safe and challenging environment. Employees at Graham Packaging are encouraged to take initiative and cultivate both their own growth and that of their colleagues, ensuring a rewarding and dynamic workplace where accountability and creativity are highly valued.

The Plant Technical Manager role at Graham Packaging is a pivotal leadership position tasked with overseeing the plant’s maintenance, technical, and continuous improvement teams. This role is crucial for maximizing equipment value by enhancing machine safety, product quality, and operational reliability. The Technical Manager is responsible for fostering a high-performance culture grounded in safety awareness and skill development among diverse teams. Utilizing a strong foundation in engineering principles, this manager provides technical guidance and makes pivotal decisions to support the plant’s overall objectives.

Specific responsibilities include managing capital projects, improving processes, and ensuring compliance with safety and quality standards. The Technical Manager also plays a key role in developing quality assurance plans aimed at lowering costs associated with poor quality by using analytical tools like statistical process control and Pareto diagrams. Additionally, they oversee the design and execution of plant capital and expense projects, ensuring adherence to schedules and budgets. Driving continuous improvement, managing external technical relationships, and leading safety initiatives are also critical components of the role.

The position requires collaboration with various functions such as operations, quality, purchasing, and finance, emphasizing cross-departmental integration and innovation. The Technical Manager is expected to lead projects involving systems optimization, troubleshooting, and manufacturing information systems, while coaching and developing a maintenance team aligned with the plant’s Zero Loss Culture methodology. This is a leadership opportunity that blends strategic oversight with hands-on technical expertise to ensure the plant operates at peak performance, safety, and quality standards.

The role demands a strong communications skill set, the ability to work independently and under pressure, and a proactive attitude toward continuous improvement and problem-solving. It also offers the chance to contribute substantially to the broader goals of Graham Packaging, reinforcing its position as a sustainable packaging leader. Employment is subject to individual qualification and experience, with a compensation package aligned with legal requirements within the United States. This role includes comprehensive benefits such as medical, dental, vision, life insurance, a 401K savings plan, employee wellness programs, and paid time off, creating an attractive and supportive overall employment package at Graham Packaging.

Job Requirements

ability to maintain regular, predictable, and punctual attendance
computer usage and typing skills are essential
excellent verbal and written communication, including the ability to effectively communicate with internal and external customers
must be able to work under pressure and meet deadlines, while maintaining a positive attitude and providing exemplary customer service
ability to work independently and to carry out assignments to completion within parameters of instructions given, prescribed routines, and standard accepted practices
collaborates well with others: proactively contributes to group objectives
volunteers to help others
ability to identify potential business solutions a broad scope of thinking across businesses and functions to develop new innovation

Job Qualifications

a bachelor’s degree in engineering or technical filed and/or related operations experience
a minimum of fifteen years’ experience in an operations supervisory or management role in a manufacturing environment with demonstrated leadership skills strongly preferred
strong track record of engineering aptitude, ability to apply engineering principles, and problem solving
strong leadership skills, including experience leading others in projects or programs, and the ability to successfully interact with individuals representing other areas or interests and the ability to manage team leaders & mechanics
understanding and experience interacting with multiple business functions, including quality control, purchasing, distribution, human resources, finance and especially operations

Job Duties

understands, follows and enforces all established safety, health, quality GMP and Company policies, procedures and recognized practices
collaborate with operations to ensure manufacturing methods, processes and performance are in compliance and managed through a continuous improvement process
maintains overall responsibility for capital execution, process improvement and accountability for maintenance
provides critical technical leadership for major capital projects and ensures production teams have solutions needed to drive safety, quality and performance plan
in collaboration with the quality manager, develops, leads, and implements a plant quality assurance plan to reduce cost of poor quality (COPQ) by conducting gap analysis, identifying the strategy and tactics to bridge the gap using tools such as statistical process control (SPC), Pareto diagrams, etc.
oversees efficient and effective design and execution efforts for plant capital and expense projects, meeting schedule and cost targets
drives continuous improvement efforts within current process technologies and in development and implementation of new technologies
maintains overall accountability for management of external technical relationships with contractors, and equipment vendors
provides site leadership to achieve maximization/optimization of capital assets and site utilization as well as lead safety initiatives in technical areas
develop and support strategies that integrate vertical start up (VSU), CI and zero loss culture methodologies into the master plan
provide site leadership for technical solutions to operational problems including systems optimization, debottlenecking, and troubleshooting
accountable for the strategy, design and implementation of control systems and manufacturing information systems
coach and develop maintenance and facilities team to integrate maintenance into zero loss culture
provide strategy and support for maintenance programs, development of tools and resources, personnel selection, training and development
integrate maintenance into the strategy for the broader technical community at the plant
lead and support plant continuous improvement initiatives