Product Manager

About The Company

The Company founded in 1927 in Ponca City, OK, designs and builds a wide range of custom steel fabricated products. The majority of our products are custom designed trailers to serve as the mobile platform for our customers’ specialized equipment, typically used in the Oil & Gas industry. We also build stationary structures to house or transport equipment. Very often, our products involve complicated electronics and hydraulics to achieve the results our customers require.

All of our products are custom designed and built to our customers’ exacting specifications for the quantities and delivery times the customer requires. Frequently, customers approach the company with an idea for a product to fill a unique business need with little more than a sketch to work from. The Company has consistently been able to work with our customers to find unique and affordable solutions to their complex problems. The Company’s ability to take a customer idea from inception through design, prototyping, and final production with the highest commitment to quality and safety have earned our customers’ trust.

Just under half of our workforce consists of welders followed by almost equal numbers of painters, machinists, assembly mechanics, and steel cutting and forming workers. We also have a design team and other support functions that provide essential services such as purchasing, quality control, inventory, and IT.

Product Manager Position

The Product Manager is the primary customer interface for the company. Our Product Managers interact with customers from our initial contact all the way through the product lifecycle. The Product Manager serves as the customer focal point to insure all their needs are met with quality, cost-effective products delivered on-time. Internally, the product manager interacts heavily with our sales, design, and production teams as customer products go from request, through design, production and final delivery.

Product Managers provide key up-front interaction with new and existing customers in understanding their needs and requirements. The Product Manager then matches those up with our design and production capabilities and provides quotes for products based on drawings and specifications. The Product Manager is the primary escalation point for any customer questions or concerns for anything the company provides them.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Interface with customers to understand their needs and expectations. This often includes concepts for products that aren’t fully developed requiring the Product Manager to assist in refinement of the specifications.
• Based on customer requirements and designs for products, the Product Manager prepares customer product quotes, often using incomplete information requiring key assumptions to be made and documented.
• Coordinate with the customer and work with the company’s design and production teams to establish product delivery schedules.
• Prepares, coordinates, and conducts manufacturing reviews to review drawings and the required production process with the manufacturing team.
• Prepares Bill of Material (BOM) for products and makes changes to existing BOMs to insure all purchased and manufactured parts are identified.
• Designs “routings” and “travelers” and input them into the ERP system. These are the steps through the shop and the associated machines/work cells a product must flow through to be produced.
• Communicate with the customer the need for design changes to improve and/or reduce the cost of the product.
• Establish or modify new manufactured part numbers as required.
• Maintain standard cost and labor hours for the production of parts for each operation in the production plant and monitor performance against standard.
• Request new part numbers for purchased parts as required for BOM’s.
• Input new routings into the ERP system with accurate operation times and update as required to reflect best standard times.
• Review job costs and update BOM’s and/or routings to insure accurate parts, operations, and standard costs.
• Interface regularly with various departments including: Design, Production, Accounting and Inventory.
• Maintain customer purchase orders using customer EDI systems and manage customer demand between their ordering systems, email, and the company’s systems.
• Arrange shipping for completed orders through truck lines, customer shipping departments, and other common carriers.
• Engage with production to monitor and escalate issues impacting production schedules to insure customer delivery schedules are met, including assisting with expediting of parts shortages or other sources of delay.
• Serve as the SPOC to maintain customer satisfaction insuring that any issues with quality, timeliness, or any customer concern are addressed quickly.

Position Qualifications

• Significant knowledge of and experience in discrete manufacturing processes and equipment. Experience is preferred in a steel fabrication setting, ideally for mobile equipment in the Oil & Gas industry.
• Ability to read and understand design drawings and models and develop quotes from them as well as instruct others on steps required for manufacturing.
• Strong leadership skills with a commitment to excellence.
• Excellent speaking, writing and listening skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced and high-demand environment.
• Knowledge of ERP systems in Discrete Manufacturing; preferably with Made2Manage ERP.
• Strong analytical skills required to understand design and manufacturing concepts and turn those concepts into product quotes and manufacturing steps.
• Keen attention to details is required for the development of BOMs, routings, and quotes, as well as in the oversight of the manufacturing process.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel), with emphasis on Excel as it is used heavily for BOMs, quotes, order analysis, and other functions.
• Ability to work under limited supervision to achieve customer satisfaction and timely delivery of products.
• Strong influence management skills are needed in working with design and production departments and in managing customer interactions.
• Lean Manufacturing experience is preferred.

Other Requirements

A minimum of five (5) years manufacturing or supply chain experience in a discrete manufacturing environment or equivalent combinations of education and experience that provide the required knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Benefits Provided

• Comprehensive benefits package including Medical, Dental, Life, and Vision insurance with competitive rates.
• Employer 401K plan with company matching
• Annual vacation and sick time per company schedule