Overview

Director of Manufacturing Equipment Manufacturing Peoria, IL (In-Person) Full-Time Relocation Assistance Provided Compensation: $150,000 - $190,000 Reports To: Chief Operating Officer (COO) Someone has to own what happens on the shop floor - the safety, the quality, the schedule, and the people who make it all happen. If leading that operation, at scale, is the challenge you want, keep reading. Rheo Engineering designs and builds engineer-to-order and standardized process equipment for the pharmaceutical industry - equipment used in the direct manufacture of life-saving medicine. Our Equipment division is scaling fast, and our fabrication, assembly, and integration floor needs to scale with it. We're looking for a Director of Manufacturing to own that floor - safety, quality, on-time delivery, and the skilled-trades workforce behind it all - reporting directly to our COO. What You'll Do Supervisory Lead, develop, and hold accountable shop-floor supervisors, leads, and trades teams - building a strong frontline leadership bench to support scaling Coach teams in structured problem-solving and lean methods (e.g., 5S, kaizen) to eliminate waste and improve flow Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement where every team member is empowered to surface problems and improve the process Partner with HR on hiring, onboarding, training, performance management, and workforce development for a growing trades organization Lead change management so new processes, layouts, equipment, and systems are adopted effectively and sustainably Non-Supervisory Champion a zero-injury safety culture on the manufacturing floor - machine guarding, lockout/tagout, ergonomics, hot-work, and PPE compliance Ensure builds meet engineering specs, drawings, and applicable codes (e.g., ASME BPE), along with the cGMP-aligned documentation and material traceability pharmaceutical customers require, partnering with Quality on first-pass acceptance and audit readiness Own daily and weekly shop-floor execution - fabrication, assembly, integration, and factory acceptance testing - to hit build milestones, ship dates, and customer witness events Translate project schedules and engineering releases into production plans and shop loading across concurrent engineer-to-order projects, managing constraints and driving recovery plans when delivery is at risk Build and execute a manufacturing capacity plan that scales fabrication, assembly, and integration ahead of demand Lead skilled-trades workforce planning - welders, fabricators, assemblers, and technicians - including hiring, cross-training, certification, and flexible labor strategies to grow capability without diluting quality Partner with the COO on data-driven capacity and headcount modeling, and identify the capital equipment, tooling, and floor-space investments needed to expand throughput Define and own manufacturing KPIs - on-time delivery, first-pass yield, labor utilization, safety, and rework - and drive root-cause analysis and corrective action when targets are missed Manage manufacturing labor cost and utilization against project estimates, protecting Equipment-division margin as volume scales Partner with Engineering, Project Management, and Supply Chain to keep designs manufacturable, schedules on track, and materials available Establish standard operating rhythms (daily huddles, tiered production reviews) so execution is consistent and coordinated across the floor Serve as the manufacturing point of accountability for Quality and customer witness / factory acceptance events What Success Looks Like The floor runs safely and ships projects on time to specification, with high first-pass yield, minimal rework, and labor utilization and build costs tracking to estimate Skilled-trades capacity, disciplined standard work, and a frontline leadership bench scale to support backlog and pipeline, with Manufacturing operating as a predictable, collaborative partner What We're Looking For