Production Head - Rubber/Belting

Role Overview: BE / B.Tech in Mechanical, Rubber Technology, Polymer or Chemical Engineering. Take complete ownership of the plant floor - from machine erection and commissioning, through validation trials, to steady-state production. The role is accountable for delivering consistent belt quality on the transferred technology and for building a production system that runs to standard without depending on the promoters being present each day. Key Responsibilities: - Apply engineering fundamentals to machine settings, process parameters and fault diagnosis, rather than relying only on accumulated operator experience. - Understand lathe and machining operations supporting in-house grinding, trimming and tooling work; supervise the accuracy of finishing operations. - Own calendering and mixing operations - roll settings, temperature control, sheet thickness, gauge consistency and batch-to-batch repeatability. - Operate and supervise internal mixer batch cycles including loading sequence, mixing time, dump temperature and discharge consistency. - Execute compound recipes accurately to specification, control weighing and dispersion, and identify compound-related defects. - Manage all shop floor employees, ensuring optimum utilisation of resources and driving performance. - Prepare daily, weekly and monthly production plans against order position and machine availability; sequence batches to minimise changeover time and material loss. - Run a daily coordination rhythm with sales on order priority and committed dates, and with dispatch and packaging on dispatch readiness. - Investigate internal rejections and customer complaints to root cause; raise corrective and preventive actions with named owners and dates. - Enforce FIFO for raw rubber, chemicals and compounded stock; monitor shelf life and prevent quality loss. - Track material yield, scrap and rework; improve machine utilisation and reduce wastage per metre of output. - Ensure shop floor compliance with statutory, safety and environmental requirements; support factory licence conditions and inspection readiness. - Write, issue and maintain SOPs for every process step; train operators against them and audit adherence. - Work with the Maintenance Engineer on preventive schedules, breakdown priority and critical spares. - Maintain production data in Excel and ERP; generate daily production, rejection and consumption reports independently. - Build and run a technical training calendar for supervisors and operators, including on-machine training and periodic skill assessment. - Read production and quality data to identify trend and drift; audit the accuracy of shopfloor records. - Apply structured improvement methods like Kaizen and Six Sigma to reduce rejection, cycle time and downtime; lead at least one improvement project each quarter. - Manage supervisors and operators across shifts; set expectations, handle discipline consistently, and ensure the second shift performs to the same standard as the first.