hero

JOBS IN CHARLESTON | SC | USA
Find your next job opportunity with a selection of the most innovative companies in the Charleston region.

Our regional job board features roles across industries from trusted local employers.

Production Group Leader

IFA Group

IFA Group

Summerville, SC, USA
Posted on Jan 22, 2026
Position: Production Group Leader
Location: Summerville, SC
Job Id: 244
# of Openings: 0

Job Summary:
Directly leads a manufacturing team of hourly production personnel and supervision and indirectly leads support team members from production planning, manufacturing engineering, quality and maintenance. This production team is responsible for all aspects of production for a product line or lines including production planning, staffing, quality improvements, and efficiency improvements and maintaining quality and maintenance requirements.
Leadership and Essential Functions:
As a Production Group Leader for IFNA, you are in a high impact role that requires the skills to drive multiple behaviors and programs:
  • Directs work - Providing direction, delegating, and removing obstacles to get work done.
  • Resourcefulness - Securing and deploying resources effectively and efficiently.
  • Action oriented - Taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy, and enthusiasm.
  • Builds effective teams - Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives (healthy tension) to achieve common goals. Leverages the benefits of different perspectives
  • Communicates effectively - Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences. Maintain a regular reporting structure for tracking and communicating targets and goals.
  • Cultivates innovation - Creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful.
  • Health and Safety Fundamentals - Champions and models proactive health and safety behaviors by identifying, reporting and participating in actions to improve health and safety in order to build an interdependent culture and contribute to an injury-free workplace.
  • Drives results - Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances.
  • Leads the development of departmental plans and deliverables. Develop high performance team members to meet / exceed department and organizational goals / objectives.
  • Provides technical consultation, leadership, and advice to managers, manufacturing personnel and other functions.
  • Coaches and motivates direct and indirect team members, delegates work assignments, and leads change.
  • Develop work methods and standards for each team member to meet and maintain department goals and compliance to OSHA, IATF16949 and ISO 14001 requirements
  • Encourages creative tension and differences of opinions and manages & resolves conflicts and disagreements in a constructive manner.
  • Challenges the status quo and seeks ways to create opportunities for improvement for products, processes or services.
  • Escalate issues that do not get resolved or could impact ability to meet department or organizational goals and objectives
  • Predict and prevent issues from negatively impacting group or organizational performance
  • Makes well-informed, effective and timely decisions and perceives the impact and implications of decisions
Safety, Health, & Environmental (SHE):
  • Report any work-related injury, illness, incident or hazard immediately
  • Comply with SHE standards, policies, procedures & regulations
  • Use appropriate personal protective equipment
  • Promote interdependence by looking out for one another
  • Correct safety issues within your control and capabilities
  • Recognize how your work may impact the environment and work to minimize the negative impact
  • Engage in SHE training
Quality:
  • Follow all applicable standard work, work instruction/process documentation and established quality procedures
  • Raise issues to minimize cost and quality exposures
  • Identify non-conforming material within scope of job
Delivery:
  • Demonstrate a high level of competency in core work skills
  • Meet defined goals on time
  • Pay attention to detail
Teamwork:
  • Communicate effectively with the assigned team and with all support teams.
  • Complete training in line with business requirements.
  • Participate actively in ways to improve quality, safety, process, material flow, and employee development.
  • Remain flexible and perform other miscellaneous duties, as required, to meet business goals to include working in other areas as business needs require.
  • Work with peers, skilled trades and support staff to maintain and identify equipment in need of repair.
  • Be respectful and courteous to all team members.
Additional Responsibilities:
  • Directs, maintains, and enforces the safety program for the production department you own and reviews safety records to uphold standards of maximum safety for all reports
  • Actively participates in safety committee meetings and company initiatives
  • Leads production planning activities, with logistics, planning, manufacturing engineering and quality for the assigned area of responsibility
  • Leads IFA quality initiatives with all associates within assigned area of responsibility
  • Plans and coordinates resources necessary to meet customer requirements
  • Provides direction and guidance to others in a way that leads to optimal team performance and meets Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as safety, quality, production and cost
  • Selects and collects relevant information, organizes and connects information to task and goals and makes effective decisions
  • Independently monitors the progress of daily activities, reports progress, anticipates potential disruptions and develops solutions
  • Leads adjustments to activities, tasks and behaviors when changes are necessary to meet customer requirements and company objectives
  • Develops and implements new ideas or combination with existing work methods and lean manufacturing practices (Problem identification and problem solving techniques, value stream mapping, use of Kanban/Heijunka systems TPM processes, etc)
  • Leads daily production meetings and lead monthly operations review and forecast meetings for the respective area of responsibility
  • Creates and implements development plans for assigned personnel to improve overall team performance
  • Coaches or mentors direct reports and other team members to develop their skills in problem solving, lean concepts and leadership
  • Manages the training process for all associates and ensure training is carried out within assigned area of responsibility
  • Facilitates an environment where direct reports make suggestions to improve the production process and results
  • Leads and/or participates in Kaizen events, listening to employee suggestions, and promote two-way open communications among all team members
  • Actively participates and supports the quality management system including compliance with TS16949, ISO14001, VDA 63 standards; product, process and other audits in assigned area of responsibility
  • Maintains customer relationships to support the company’s goals and objectives
Education:
  • Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in a technical discipline preferred or combination of equivalent education and experience
Experience:
  • 5 to 7 years of experience in a manufacturing environment requirement with 3-5 years of experience in a leadership role in production, manufacturing engineering or technical maintenance support
  • Familiar with automotive supplier requirements highly desirable
  • SAP enterprise system highly desirable
Specific Skills:
  • Possess a solid working knowledge of other business functions such as Logistics, Finance, Engineering, and Human Resources in addition to Manufacturing and Quality
  • Strong leadership and data driven decision making ability
  • Possess a continuous process improvement mindset with the ability to effectively lead and manage change
  • Ability to accurately convey concepts and ideas both written and oral with all levels of the organization
  • Able to read/understand component, tooling and machine drawings for troubleshooting
  • Ability to collect, organize and analyze data Ability to use data to make effective decisions
  • Ability to excel in a team environment and lead cross-functional teams
  • Knowledge of manufacturing processes and quality management system processes including PPAP, APQP, PFMEA’s
  • Applied use of problem solving techniques and tools (ie A3, Six Sigma, Shainin, etc)
  • Applied knowledge and experience in Lean techniques Ability to lead and/or facilitate Kaizen events
  • Knowledge of IATF 16949, VDA 63, and/or ISO14001 requirements for applicable manufacturing topics
  • Knowledge of Microsoft Office including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint Familiarity with drawing software such as Visio preferred
  • Knowledge of Statistical Process Control
  • Ability to travel as needed; expected to be less than 10%
  • Ability to work differing shifts to meet business and customer requirements
Physical Requirements:
  • Must be able to walk/move about a 500,000 sq ft manufacturing facility: 100% of the time
  • Must be able to stand/walk/move about specific work area: 90% of the time
  • Must be able to bend/reach/twist/stoop: 70% of the time
  • Must be able to lift up to 40lbs on a frequent basis: 40% of the time
  • Must be able to lift over 40lbs on an infrequent basis: 15% of the time
  • Must be able to sit at a work station: 0% of the time
  • Must be able to work and operate a computer terminal: 80% of the time
  • Vision is required to analyze and process work; and to work on computer terminal/machine centers, etc.
  • Hearing is essential for safety reasons; and to communicate with employees, supervisors, managers, vendors, suppliers and customers via conversation, group meetings, and/or phone conferences
  • Must be able to wear a painting suit and/or respirator
  • Must be able to work with paints/solvents/cleaners
  • Must be able to work any shift as required including overtime as needed
AAP/EEO Statement
IFA North America provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, IFA North America complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.


Apply for this Position