The role provides daily leadership, coordination and performance control across factory production. It converts the production schedule into completed work by ensuring jobs are production-ready, labour and equipment are effectively allocated, constraints are resolved promptly, and agreed safety, quality, cost and delivery outcomes are achieved.

The Production Manager maintains direct control of factory priorities and provides the General Manager with accurate forecasts, performance results, emerging risks and recovery actions.

CORE ACCOUNTABILITY: Plan the work, organise the resources, control execution, remove constraints, measure results and recover the plan when performance falls behind.

Factory Delivery

- Take ownership of the daily and weekly factory production plan.

- Translate the production schedule into clear priorities for each production area and employee.

- Ensure scheduled jobs commence, progress and finish by their required factory completion dates.

- Monitor actual production progress against the approved schedule throughout each day.

- Identify jobs at risk of delay and implement recovery actions before committed dates are missed.

- Maintain an accurate forecast of job completion dates and escalate significant risks to the General Manager with a recommended recovery plan.

- Ensure completed work moves promptly to quality inspection, dispatch or the next production stage.

Daily Production Control

- Conduct a daily factory-start meeting covering priorities, labour allocation, job risks, safety matters and delivery requirements.

- Allocate employees to jobs based on production priorities, required capabilities and available capacity.

- Confirm employees understand the required work, allocated hours, drawings, specifications and completion expectations.

- Monitor performance during the day and reallocate labour or resequence work where necessary.

- Maintain sufficient forward planning so the factory is prepared for upcoming work.

- Ensure job status and production information are accurately maintained in ERP.

- Finish each day with an accurate view of work completed, outstanding work and the following day’s priorities.

Job Readiness and Production Flow

- Confirm scheduled jobs are ready for production before work commences.

- Check that current drawings, job cards, materials, tooling, equipment, instructions and quality requirements are available.





- Prevent incomplete or unprepared jobs from unnecessarily disrupting factory flow.

- Coordinate with engineering, procurement, stores, quality and administration to remove production constraints.

- Sequence work to minimise waiting time, unnecessary handling, bottlenecks and excess work-in-progress.

- Maintain effective flow between cutting, fabrication, welding, finishing, inspection and dispatch.

Labour Performance and Productivity

- Manage factory labour to achieve the production plan within allocated job hours.

- Monitor actual labour hours against estimated, allocated or budgeted hours.

- Investigate material production variances, lost time and low-productivity activities.

- Take corrective action when jobs exceed allocated hours or fall behind schedule.

- Balance workloads across factory areas to improve utilisation of employees, equipment and available capacity.

- Control overtime and obtain approval from the General Manager before overtime is committed.

- Build accountability for productive time, job completion and accurate labour recording.

Quality and Rework Control

- Ensure work is manufactured in accordance with approved drawings, specifications, job requirements and the Rowlands Metalworks quality system.

- Establish appropriate in-process checks so errors are identified before work proceeds to the next stage.

- Ensure employees do not knowingly pass defective or incomplete work to another production stage.

- Coordinate final production checks and quality inspections.

- Ensure non-conformances, rework and production errors are recorded and addressed promptly.

- Investigate recurring quality issues and implement corrective actions with relevant personnel.

- Monitor the production effect of rework, including additional labour hours and delivery risk.

- Support compliance with ISO 9001 and applicable customer quality requirements.

Factory Leadership

- Provide visible, hands-on leadership across the factory.

- Set clear expectations for daily production, workmanship, conduct,



housekeeping and safety.

- Hold employees accountable for agreed work, allocated hours and required completion dates.

- Provide regular feedback, instruction and practical support to production employees.

- Address production performance issues promptly and consistently.

- Identify training and skills gaps that affect factory capacity, quality or delivery.

- Coordinate employee training, supervision and competency development.

- Ensure new employees receive appropriate induction, supervision and job-specific instruction.

- Promote a factory culture of ownership, urgency, teamwork and production excellence.

Safety and Factory Discipline

- Ensure production activities are planned and performed safely.

- Confirm employees follow applicable safe work procedures, PPE requirements and WHS controls.

- Stop or correct unsafe work when identified.

- Ensure hazards, near misses and incidents are promptly reported and addressed.

- Maintain orderly, clean and efficient factory work areas.

- Ensure machinery, tooling or process faults affecting safe production are reported and controlled.

- Consider safety requirements when setting priorities, allocating work and managing production pressure.

Continuous Improvement

- Identify and implement practical improvements to factory workflow, layout, job preparation, material handling and production methods.

- Use production results to identify recurring delays, capacity constraints and sources of lost time.

- Support Rowlands Metalworks’ Lean manufacturing practices.

- Involve factory employees in resolving production problems and improving work methods.

- Standardise improved processes where appropriate.

- Track whether implemented improvements produce measurable advantages in safety, quality, labour efficiency or delivery.

Reporting and Accountability

- Provide concise and accurate reporting to the General Manager on production completed against schedule, upcoming due work and jobs at risk.

- Report expected completion dates, labour performance against allocated hours, overtime used or anticipated, and factory capacity constraints.

- Report quality issues, rework, non-conformances, equipment constraints and the corrective or recovery actions being taken.

- Escalate issues with sufficient notice for management action; do not wait until a delivery date has been missed.

📌 Production Manager (Lonsdale)
🏢 Rowlands Metalworks
📍 Lonsdale