The posting
Trevor Frances Recruitment is proud to partner with a growing manufacturing organization in Calgary to recruit a hands-on Production Manager to lead its rebond carpet cushion manufacturing facility.
This is a leadership role first and foremost. The successful candidate will play a key role in shaping the culture of the plant, with safety, employee engagement, and continuous improvement at the heart of the position.
We’re looking for someone who genuinely enjoys being on the floor — building relationships with employees, understanding the challenges they face, identifying opportunities for improvement, and creating an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up.
This isn't a role where you'll spend your days behind a desk. You'll be highly visible on the production floor, working alongside supervisors and operators to build trust, improve performance, and create a safer, stronger operation.
What You'll Be Responsible For
Safety Culture & Employee Engagement
Safety is the primary focus of this role. You'll help make safety a genuine part of the plant's day-to-day culture rather than simply a compliance requirement.
- Own and drive the plant's safety culture, making safety a visible and consistent daily priority.
- Lead daily and weekly safety huddles and toolbox talks that are practical, relevant, and engaging.
- Build a strong near-miss and hazard reporting culture where employees feel comfortable speaking up and know their concerns will be addressed.
- Investigate incidents thoroughly and ensure corrective actions are completed and communicated across shifts.
- Spend significant time on the production floor through regular floor walks, shift-start conversations, and one-on-ones.
- Build genuine relationships with operators and supervisors and become someone employees feel comfortable approaching with concerns or ideas.
- Observe processes with a critical eye to identify potential safety hazards, bottlenecks, and quality concerns before they escalate.
- Recognize and reinforce safe behaviours, good catches, and strong performance.
- Champion open, two-way communication and create an environment where employees feel heard and respected.
- Partner with HR on onboarding and training to ensure new employees are properly supported and equipped to work safely from day one.
- Hold supervisors accountable for maintaining the same standards of safety, communication, and employee engagement across every shift.
Production Leadership
- Plan and oversee daily production activities to meet volume, quality, cost, and delivery objectives.
- Lead production employees through effective scheduling, coaching, development, and performance management.
- Monitor key production metrics including throughput, yield, waste, quality consistency, and on-time completion.
- Communicate plant performance and identify opportunities to improve operational results.
- Partner closely with Maintenance to maximize equipment uptime and minimize unplanned downtime.
- Coordinate raw material and finished goods flow with Procurement and Warehouse teams.
Continuous Improvement
You'll be expected to identify opportunities for improvement by combining data with what you're seeing and hearing directly on the floor.
- Identify and eliminate production bottlenecks through observation, employee feedback, and data analysis.
- Create a simple and effective process for employees to bring forward improvement ideas.
- Close the loop with employees so they can see how their ideas contribute to meaningful change.
- Lead root-cause analysis and problem-solving initiatives with supervisors and operators directly involved in the process.
- Drive improvements in product consistency while reducing waste, scrap, and rework.
- Apply Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, or similar continuous improvement principles to improve flow, reduce variability, and increase efficiency.
Quality & Compliance
- Ensure finished products consistently meet customer specifications and quality requirements.
- Maintain compliance with Alberta OHS regulations, WHMIS, and internal EHS policies.
- Ensure production, quality, and safety records are accurate and maintained appropriately.
- Promote a culture where quality and safety are considered everyone's responsibility.
What You'll Bring
- 5+ years of production or manufacturing leadership experience, ideally within foam, rubber, textiles, or a similar process manufacturing environment.
- Experience in rebond or carpet cushion manufacturing is an asset, but not required.
- Demonstrated success building or strengthening safety culture within a production environment.
- Experience leading teams in a unionized manufacturing environment.
- Practical experience with Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, or other continuous improvement methodologies — formal certification is not necessarily required.
- A track record of identifying problems and implementing practical improvements that deliver measurable results.
- Strong people leadership skills, with the ability to coach, develop, and hold employees accountable while maintaining trust and respect.
- Experience with production scheduling, inventory flow, and manufacturing cost drivers.
- Familiarity with Alberta OHS legislation and WHMIS requirements.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to comfortably engage with both frontline employees and senior leadership.
- Post-secondary education in Operations, Engineering, Manufacturing, or a related field is an asset; equivalent hands-on experience will be strongly considered.
What Success Looks Like
In your first year, success will be measured not only by production results, but by the culture you help create.
You'll be successful when:
- Employees are actively participating in safety and confidently reporting hazards and near misses.
- Safety incidents are reduced and corrective actions are consistently followed through.
- Employees have a clear and trusted way to bring forward improvement ideas — with tangible employee-driven improvements being implemented.
- Product consistency improves and scrap and rework are reduced.
- Production flow, throughput, and equipment uptime improve.
- Employees feel more engaged, supported, and connected to the success of the plant.
- Supervisors are consistently reinforcing the same expectations around safety, accountability, communication, and performance.
Why This Opportunity?
This is an opportunity for a hands-on manufacturing leader to make a meaningful impact.
You'll have the opportunity to shape plant culture, build strong relationships with a team, improve the way work gets done, and create an environment where employees take pride in what they do.
You'll join an organization that is looking for a leader who will be visible, engaged, and genuinely invested in its people and operation.
