Manufacturing Operations Manager Jobs in Covington, LA

The Senior Operations Manager is a critical leadership role within Weyerhaeuser’s Lumber business, responsible for driving safe, reliable, and cost competitive operations at a lumber manufacturing facility. Operating as the second in command to the Mill Manager, this role provides day to day leadership across production, maintenance, and operational support teams while ensuring alignment with Weyerhaeuser’s values, business objectives, and commitment to continuous improvement.

This leader plays a key role in cultivating a safety-first culture, strengthening employee engagement, and driving results through sustainable operational performance.

Key Responsibilities:

• Safety Leadership

• Lead with an uncompromising commitment to safety—Weyerhaeuser’s top priority.

• Model and reinforce safe behaviors, ensuring compliance with all safety policies and regulatory requirements.

• Drive incident prevention through proactive hazard identification, employee involvement, and root cause analysis.

• Partner with teams to continuously improve safety performance and build a culture where employees feel empowered to speak up.

Operational Excellence

• Lead daily mill operations to meet or exceed production, recovery, quality, and cost targets.

• Partner with the Mill Manager to execute business and operational strategies aligned with Weyerhaeuser’s objectives.

• Utilize data and key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive performance, accountability, and decision-making.

• Ensure seamless coordination across log yard, sawmill, planer, kiln, and shipping operations.

• Drive operational discipline and a culture of excellence through leader standard work, daily management routines, improvement in SMP scores, setting clear performance expectations.

People & Culture

• Build and sustain an engaged, high-performing workforce grounded in Weyerhaeuser’s core values: safety, integrity, respect, inclusion, citizenship, and sustainability.

• Coach and develop department managers, supervisors and frontline leaders to strengthen leadership capability and succession pipelines.

• Foster a culture of trust, accountability, and collaboration through visible leadership and clear communication.

• Develop and improve onboarding, training, and job qualification programs to accelerate readiness and support consistent performance.

• Partner with HR on employee relations, talent development, workforce planning, and engagement strategies. Continuous Improvement & Reliability

• Champion Lean manufacturing principles and continuous improvement efforts to eliminate waste and improve process stability.

• Collaborate with maintenance and reliability teams to maximize uptime and improve asset performance.

• Lead structured problem-solving efforts using root cause analysis (RCA) to address recurring issues and strengthen a continuous improvement culture.

Financial & Business Accountability

• Drive cost discipline and operational efficiency to meet financial targets.

• Identify opportunities to improve margins through productivity gains, yield improvement, and cost reduction.

• Support capital planning and lead execution of projects that enhance safety, reliability, and production capability.

• Build financial capability across the organization by coaching and developing leaders on cost management, budgeting, and business fundamentals.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Maintain strong alignment with plant leadership, regional leadership, and corporate partners.

• Communicate clearly and consistently on performance, priorities, and improvement initiatives.

• Represent the mill in a manner that reflects Weyerhaeuser’s commitment to responsible operations and community engagement.

• Strengthen workforce engagement through visible leadership, consistent communication, and follow-through on commitments—reinforcing the same expectations for all leaders.

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Forestry, Manufacturing, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 10 plus years of progressive leadership experience in wood products manufacturing or industrial operations.
• Wood products manufacturing experience required (OSB, Lumber, Plywood) with Lumber sector highly desired
• Demonstrated success leading teams in a safety-critical, high-paced production environment.
• Experience managing supervisors and a large hourly workforce.
• Outstanding teaming and interpersonal skills that effectively engage teams to meet business goals and ensure successful teaming/networking within the region, the Wood Products business and the company as needed
• Strong business and financial acumen
• Demonstrated ability to raise performance by building and maintaining positive relationships with all associates and leaders through coaching, development and instilling a continuous improvement mindset
• Excellent interpersonal, written, verbal and electronic communication skills
• Strong planning and organizational skills
• Able to work flexible hours as needed in a mill environment

Preferred .

• Lean/Continuous Improvement experience.
• Experience with reliability-centered maintenance and capital project execution.

About Weyerhaeuser

We sustainably manage forests and manufacture products that make the world a better place. We’re serious about safety, driven to achieve excellence, and proud of what we do. With multiple business lines in locations across North America, we offer a range of exciting career opportunities for smart, talented people who are passionate about making a difference. 
We know you have a choice in your career. We want you to choose us. 

What We Offer:

Compensation: This role is eligible for our annual merit-increase program, and we are targeting a salary range of $131,000-$196,700 based on your level of skills, qualifications and experience. You will also be eligible for our Annual Incentive Program, which offers a cash bonus targeting 20% of base pay. Potential plan funding may range from zero to two times that target.

Benefits: When you join our team, you and your dependents will be offered coverage under our comprehensive employee benefits plan, which includes medical, dental, vision, short and long-term disability, and life insurance. We offer a pre-tax Health Savings Account option which includes a company contribution. Other benefit options are also available such as voluntary Long-Term Care and Employee Assistance Programs. We also support personal volunteerism, sponsor a host of diversity networks, promote mentoring, and provide training and development opportunities to help you chart your path to a fulfilling career.

Retirement: Employees are able to enroll in our company’s 401k plan, which includes a paid company match in addition to our annual contribution equal to 5% of your base salary.

Paid Time Off or Vacation: We provide eligible employees who are scheduled to work 25 hours or more per week with 3-weeks of paid vacation to use during your first year of employment. In addition, after being employed for six months, eligible employees begin to accrue vacation for future use. We also recognize eleven paid holidays per year, providing a total of 88 holiday hours and paid parental leave for all full-time employees.

Weyerhaeuser is an equal opportunity employer. Inclusion is one of our five core values and we strive to maintain a culture where all our people feel a sense of belonging, opportunity and shared purpose. We are committed to recruiting a diverse workforce and supporting an equitable and inclusive environment that inspires people of all backgrounds to join, stay and thrive with our team.

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