Vice President Lab Operations Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

The Vice President of Production Operations is a strategic executive leader responsible for ensuring MISUMI Americas is fully ready to deliver on the production commitments customers trust us to fulfill. This role owns the end-to-end operational readiness framework — spanning people, processes, technology, and supply chain — and drives flawless execution across all customer production programs. The VP will build and lead a high-performing operations organization capable of scaling with business growth while consistently meeting customer expectations for quality, delivery, and responsiveness.

This is a remote role, but requires frequent travel (approximately 25–40%) to our various supply regions (e.g. India, China, Mexico, Japan, US), customer locations, and MISUMI Americas operational hubs.

Operational Readiness & Strategy

• Define and own the operational readiness framework that ensures MISUMI Americas can fulfill customer production programs at scale — across people, processes, technology, and supply chain.
• Work closely with cross-functional leadership across MISUMI Americas — including Sales, Technology, Operations, Engineering, Finance, and Quality — to ensure that the Production service offerings being developed achieve strong product market fit, are operationally deliverable at launch, and continue to evolve based on customer and market feedback.
• Develop and execute a multi-year operations strategy aligned with company growth targets and customer commitments.
• Partner with Executive & GTM Leadership to assess organizational capability and product market fit gaps, establish a roadmap for our production offering, and executive to that roadmap.
• Establish clear operational KPIs, dashboards, and governance rhythms to provide visibility and accountability across the production operations function.

Production Program Execution

• Lead the end-to-end execution of customer production programs — from program intake through delivery — ensuring on-time, on-budget, and on-quality fulfillment.
• Serve as the senior operational escalation point for complex or high-priority customer programs, resolving bottlenecks and protecting delivery commitments.
• Partner with our VP of Program Management to implement program management standards and processes that enable consistent, repeatable execution across the portfolio of customer programs.
• Build a Launch partner development production system built for speed, with reproducibility and reliability. Utilizing AI tools and improved work flows that are differentiated than a typical contract manufacturing service provider.
• Collaborate with sales and account management teams to translate customer requirements into operational plans and capacity commitments.
• Accountable for key performance metrics for our production programs across all regions, including metrics such as Profit (Gross Profit, Contribution Profit), Delivery Performance (OTd), Quality (Defect Rate, Escaping Defects), NPS, Manufacturing Margin and PPV.

People & Organization Leadership

• Partner with Regional General Managers to build, develop, and inspire a world-class production operations team — including operations managers, program managers, supply chain leads, and technical staff.
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and customer-centricity throughout the operations organization.
• Define org structure, roles, and workforce planning strategies to support current and future business demands.
• Attract, develop, and retain high-potential operations talent, creating clear career pathways and development programs.

Process Excellence & Continuous Improvement

• Champion lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, or equivalent operational excellence methodologies to drive efficiency, reduce waste, and improve quality across all production operations.
• Identify systemic process gaps and lead cross-functional initiatives to design, implement, and embed improved workflows.
• Establish change management practices that enable the organization to adopt new processes and technologies effectively.
• Build a data-driven decision-making culture with rigorous use of metrics, root cause analysis, and corrective action processes.champion the pragmatic use of AI and advanced analytics where they can meaningfully enhance operational insight and execution.

Technology & Digital Operations

• Partner with IT and digital transformation teams to evaluate, implement, and optimize operational technology — including ERP, WMS, MES, and analytics platforms — that enable production program execution.
• Drive automation and digitization of manual operational workflows to improve speed, accuracy, and scalability.
• Ensure technology investments are matched to operational needs, properly implemented, and fully adopted by operations teams.
• Leverage data and digital tools to improve production visibility, forecasting accuracy, and customer reporting.
• Actively evaluate and, where viable, leverage artificial intelligence (AI) tools and capabilities to improve the competitiveness and reliability of MISUMI Americas' production operations — including applications in demand forecasting, production scheduling, quality detection, supply chain risk monitoring, and operational decision support.

Supply Chain Management

• Own the supply chain strategy for MISUMI Americas production programs, ensuring supplier readiness, inventory positioning, and procurement processes support reliable customer fulfillment.
• Partner with global MISUMI supply chain teams to leverage group capabilities while adapting strategies to Americas market needs.
• Partner very closely with Regional General Managers — whose teams own supplier relationships and in-region supply chains — to ensure operational readiness and flawless execution for production programs. The VP will work hand-in-hand with RGMs to align on capacity, supplier performance, inventory positioning, and regional fulfillment strategies that support customer commitments.
• Develop supply chain resilience strategies to proactively manage disruptions and protect customer delivery commitments.

Customer & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Serve as a senior operational partner to key customers, participating in business reviews and driving resolution of delivery or quality concerns.
• Represent operations in executive leadership forums, providing transparent performance updates and strategic recommendations.

Ensure customer escalations related to production programs are resolved swiftly and with lasting corrective actions.
All employees are expected to maintain and contribute to the QMS.

Required Experience

• 15+ years of progressive operations leadership experience, with at least 5 years in a senior or executive role (VP or equivalent) overseeing production or manufacturing operations.
• Demonstrated track record of leading operational transformations and scaling operations organizations in growth stage or mid market contract manufacturing companies.
• Expertise in production program management, supply chain strategy, and lean/continuous improvement methodologies.
• Proven ability to lead and develop large, globally distributed teams.
• Strong cross-functional influencing skills; ability to align diverse stakeholders around operational strategy and execution priorities.
• Bachelor's degree in Operations Management, Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, or a related field.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in industrial components, manufacturing distribution, or custom parts fulfillment industries — ideally with exposure to MISUMI's product or business model.
• Familiarity with MISUMI's Americas operations, customer base, or competitive landscape.
• MBA or advanced degree in a relevant discipline.
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or equivalent certification.
• Experience leading digital/ERP transformation programs within an operations environment.
• Multilingual capabilities (Spanish, Japanese, and/or Mandarin) a plus given global operating footprint.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee routinely is required to sit; walk; talk and hear; use hands to keyboard, fingers, handle, and feel; stoop, kneel, crouch, twist, crawl, reach, and stretch.
• This is a remote role, but requires frequent travel (approximately 25–40%) to our various supply regions (e.g. India, China, Mexico, Japan, US), customer locations, and MISUMI Americas operational hubs.

Salary Range:
$220,000 – $270,000 base salary per year, depending on experience, plus a variable compensation potential of $50,000 - $80,000.

Benefits include, but are not limited to:

• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
• 401(k) plan
• Generous PTO and leave programs