Manufacturing Operations Manager

Responsibilities

• Serve as a key operational leader within the Bolingbrook, Illinois facility
• Align priorities across engineering, inventory, logistics, and project execution
• Build and uphold a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement
• Lead daily standups and execution reviews to address blockers
• Act as an escalation point for operational issues impacting quality or readiness
• Partner with Supply Chain and Fleet Operations to ensure inventory and capacity requirements
• Establish and improve SOPs, workflows, and quality standards
• Track key operational metrics including throughput, utilization, and execution performance
• Communicate operational priorities, risks, and capacity needs to stakeholders

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience leading operations, automation, manufacturing, or engineering teams
• Demonstrated success leading teams and driving results across cross-functional organizations
• Experience working with industrial automation systems or robotics
• Proven ability to establish processes, develop SOPs, and implement training programs
• Experience managing quality, safety, and on-time execution in technical environments
• Strong understanding of operational planning, resource allocation, and capacity management
• Hands-on leadership style with a willingness to solve problems directly

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with industrial robots or cobots (FANUC, KUKA, Yaskawa, ABB, or Universal Robots)
• Experience with end-of-line automation (palletizing, depalletizing, case packing)
• Experience in a robotics company, systems integrator (SI), or OEM
• Experience scaling operations within a high-growth startup
• Familiarity with Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, or Kaizen

About the Company

Formic is on a mission to reshape American manufacturing by making automation accessible to every factory through a Robotics-as-a-Service model. By removing traditional barriers of cost and complexity, Formic enables manufacturers to deploy industrial robotics and proprietary software to realize gains in throughput and safety.