Production Manager

In brief

Overview This role is for an experienced Production Manager at Macsteel, specifically for their Heat Treatment Department. It is described as a hands-on leadership position that requires a combination of technical metallurgical expertise, strategic planning, commercial acumen, and people leadership. The successful candidate will be responsible for influencing how the department delivers quality, performance, and growth for customers. What you will do The Production Manager will be responsible for a comprehensive set of duties across several key areas: * **Production & Operations Management:** Direct all heat treatment production activities to achieve throughput, productivity, and delivery targets. Develop and execute production plans aligned with customer demand, capacity, and operational requirements. Monitor furnace utilisation, turnaround times, workflow, productivity, and operational performance. Interpret material specifications, technical drawings, and customer requirements to determine optimal treatment cycles. Coordinate production, quality, maintenance, and support functions to ensure seamless operations. Analyse operational metrics and implement corrective actions to address bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Provide technical leadership and oversight for all heat treatment operations, ensuring compliance with customer specifications, metallurgical requirements, and industry standards. Develop, review, approve, and continuously optimise heat treatment procedures for various steel grades, product dimensions, and customer applications. Determine and authorise appropriate heat treatment cycles, including annealing, normalising, stress relieving, quenching, and tempering. Monitor and control furnace temperatures, soak times, quench conditions, cooling rates, tempering temperatures, and load configurations. Interpret material certificates, metallurgical test reports, technical drawings, and customer requirements. Ensure controlled atmosphere furnaces are correctly set for nitrogen, methanol, and LPG amounts to prevent oxidation, decarbonisation, soot formation, and other surface defects. * **Strategic & Business Growth:** Develop and implement departmental strategies aligned with business objectives. Identify opportunities to improve capacity, service delivery, profitability, and customer satisfaction. Contribute to long-term operational planning and sustainable business growth. * **Financial Management:** Manage the Heat Treatment Department budget and control costs, including overtime, within approved limits. Monitor labour, energy, maintenance, and consumable expenditure. Drive cost reduction initiatives while maintaining quality and safety standards. Prepare and present operational and financial performance reports. * **Leadership & People Development:** Lead, mentor, and motivate departmental teams to achieve performance objectives. Foster a culture of accountability, respect, teamwork, and high performance. Conduct performance reviews and implement development plans. Identify training requirements and support skills development and succession planning. * **Maintenance & Asset Reliability:** Ensure effective preventative maintenance programmes for furnaces and supporting equipment. Drive equipment reliability, plant availability, and downtime reduction initiatives. Support maintenance planning and capital replacement strategies. Ensure assets operate safely and efficiently. * **Quality, Safety & Compliance:** Champion a "Safety Always" culture across all departmental activities. Ensure compliance with OHSA, ISO standards, internal policies, and customer requirements. Lead investigations into quality, safety, and operational incidents and implement corrective actions. Maintain traceability, documentation integrity, and audit readiness. Drive continuous improvement in quality performance and process control. Requirements (from the original advert) * Matric (Grade 12). * A recognised tertiary qualification in Metallurgy (bachelor’s degree or National Diploma, NQF Level 6 or higher) is essential. An additional qualification in Engineering, Production Management, Operations Management or a related field will be advantageous. * 8–10 years’ manufacturing experience, including a minimum of 5 years in a production or operations management role, of which management experience in a heat treatment environment is essential. * Experience in steel, engineering or heavy manufacturing environments. * Strong understanding of heat treatment processes, metallurgical principles and production management. * Computer proficiency in Microsoft Office and production management systems. Who should apply This role is suitable for an experienced Production Manager with a strong background in metallurgy and hands-on leadership. The ideal candidate will possess a combination of technical expertise, strategic thinking, commercial awareness, and people management skills, specifically within a heat treatment environment. They should be capable of taking full ownership of departmental operations, driving performance, ensuring quality, and contributing to business growth. A commitment to safety, compliance, and continuous improvement is also crucial. Deadline 9th November, 2026 Reference Original posting: https://www.myjobmag.co.za/job/production-manager-macsteel Source: myjobmag

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At a glance

• At least 8 years of experience.

• Microsoft Office

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Job description

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