Hot End Manager

Your Job

As a Hot End Manager, you will provide leadership, technical expertise, and strategic direction for the safe and efficient operation of the Float Line Hot End, including ECS, Batch House, Furnace, Tin Bath, Lehr, Float Quality and Laboratory operations. You will be responsible for creating value through operational excellence, process optimization, team development, and reliability improvements while supporting Guardian's vision of becoming the preferred partner for our customers.

In this role, you will leverage your knowledge and experience to improve safety performance, product quality, manufacturing efficiency, and asset utilization while developing capabilities within the organization. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities, remove barriers, and drive continuous improvement across the float manufacturing process.

Our Team

Guardian Glass is a global leader in float and fabricated glass products. Our Float Operations Team is focused on creating value by safely producing high-quality glass while continuously improving our processes, capabilities, and competitive position. We are a principle-based company that relies on teamwork, innovation, ownership, and challenge processes to continuously improve our business.

What You Will Do

• Provide leadership and direction for all Hot End operations including ECS, Batch House, Furnace, Tin Bath, Lehr, Float Quality and Laboratory.
• Drive a strong safety culture and ensure compliance with environmental, health, safety, and regulatory requirements.
• Lead and develop supervisors, engineers, and operators through coaching, mentoring, and capability building.
• Champion operational excellence through process optimization, standardization, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Monitor and improve key performance indicators including safety, quality, throughput, yield, energy consumption, and cost.
• Develop and implement strategies to improve furnace performance, forming stability, equipment reliability, and operational discipline.
• Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions for process deviations, quality incidents, equipment failures, and operational upsets.
• Partner with Maintenance, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Commercial teams to achieve site and business objectives.
• Support capital projects, technology implementation, process upgrades, and operational readiness activities.
• Utilize risk-based thinking and participate in Management of Change (MOC), Process Hazard Analysis (PHA), FMEA, and other risk assessment activities.
• Identify opportunities to create value through productivity improvements, waste reduction, energy optimization, and asset effectiveness.
• Develop succession plans and build organizational capability to support future business needs.
• Drive decision-making using data analysis.
• Travel may be required for training, benchmarking, startup support, technical reviews, vendor visits, and participation in Guardian or Koch manufacturing networks.
  
  
  

Who You Are (Basic Qualifications)

• Bachelor's Degree or higher in Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience leading manufacturing operations in a continuous process industry.
• Experience leading and developing supervisors, engineers, and frontline operations personnel.
• Demonstrated ability to improve safety, quality, productivity, and cost performance.
• Strong knowledge of float manufacturing processes, process control systems, and operational excellence principles.
• Proven problem-solving, troubleshooting, and decision-making skills.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and influencing capabilities.
  
  
  

What Will Put You Ahead

• Experience in float glass manufacturing.
• Experience managing Furnace, Tin Bath, Lehr, or Batch House operations.
• Knowledge of glass melting, combustion systems, glass forming, refractory management, and thermal process optimization.
• Experience leading furnace campaigns, major repairs, rebuilds, or cold repair projects.
• Experience managing departmental budgets and capital projects.
• Track record of creating measurable value through operational improvements, yield enhancement, quality improvements, and energy reduction initiatives.
  
  
  

At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy.

Who We Are

At Koch, employees are empowered to do what they do best to make life better. Learn how our business philosophy helps employees unleash their potential while creating value for themselves and the company.

Additionally, everyone has individual work and personal needs. We seek to enable the best work environment that helps you and the business work together to produce superior results.