Heat Treating Plant Manager Search

We were tasked with finding a Plant Manager for a Commercial Heat Treater. This Heat Treater had in-house Carburizing, Case Hardening, Carbonitriding, Normalizing, Annealing, Aluminum Solution Heat Treating & Aging and Oil & Water Quenching. They heat treat both forgings & castings with several different shapes, sizes and alloys. So this company needed a Plant Manager who was a TRUE HEAT TREATER.

This person needed to have 10+ years managing a commercial heat treater, have prior experience with maintenance on heat treating equipment, be a good communicator, have P&L experience, know how to utilize a CMMS and have prior experience training and successfully improving frontline supervisor’s skills in heat treating and effective communications.

We began, by combing through the United States' Heat Treating industry, where we have identified over 500 operations.

We began by searching through the Commercial Heat Treating facilities in the Midwest.
Then, expand the search to include any Heat Treating facility throughout the Midwest, along with all of the Foundries, Extruders & Forge Shops who also had in-house heat treating capabilities.
Next, we searched through all of the Commercial Heat Treating facilities throughout the United States.
Then we searched through the remaining Heat Treating facilities throughout the United States, along with all of the Foundries, Extruders & Forge Shops who also had in-house heat treating capabilities.

We ultimately identified and contacted 419 prospective candidates who we believed might be qualified from across the U.S. Heat Treating industry.

Below is the criteria we used when evaluating the candidates we spoke to:

Must have at least 10 years of Heat Treating experience
Must have at least 5 years’ experience as a Manager in a Heat Treating operation
Must have prior P & L experience
Must have a proven track record in continuous improvement and development of people
Must have management experience in a Commercial Heat Treating job shop
Must be proficient with Microsoft Office
Must be metrics driven Manager (KPI’s, OEE, etc.)
Must have prior experience managing a team of 50+
Must be a hands-on Manager that gets out on the shop floor
Must have prior experience writing justifications for CapEx
Must have prior experience leading CapEx projects
Must have previous experience using continuous improvement tools such as Lean, TPS, 5-S, Six Sigma, TOC, etc.,
Strongly prefer experience with Maintenance of Heat Treating equipment
Strongly prefer experience utilizing a CMMS
Strongly prefer experience with developing and maintaining preventative and predictive maintenance programs
Must not have history of job hopping
Must have experience with quality systems and standards like ISO 9001
Must be able/willing to relocate
Must have US Citizenship or a Green Card
Bachelor’s degree strongly preferred

As we began evaluating the 419 people who had previous leadership experience in a Heat Treater or Heat Treat Departments across the country, there were a few key factors we identified:

Many heat treat operations do not offer a large variety of heat treating processes/services that cover a large selection of alloys
Many heat treat operations are still operating in the past, so they simply don't produce Plant Managers who've developed the skills we required
Though many leaders in the heat treating industry knew some degree of heat treating, few were TRULY HEAT TREATERS
Many people working in the heat treating industry who met our requirements are nearing retirement
Most heat treat leaders had little to no interest in relocating to begin working for a new employer

Despite learning a majority of the people in the heat treating industry did not meet our requirements, out of the 419 people we contacted:

13 candidates were submitted
8 candidates were phone interviewed
4 candidates were brought for onsite interviews

In 4 months we identified, attracted, thoroughly screened and successfully hired a Heat Treating Plant Manager from the Commercial Heat Treating Industry.

Laminin Corp can help you get started on looking for new candidates for your business. Visit our EMPLOYERS page or CONTACT US for more information!