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Vulcan Elements manufactures American rare-earth permanent magnets for defense, aerospace, and automotive applications. This is a greenfield production controls role establishing material flow, warehouse operations, ERP/WMS configuration, and inventory management for a new manufacturing facility.
The role encompasses five major areas:
**Material Flow and Plant Layout**: Design end-to-end material flow from inbound receiving through finished goods shipment, including bulk chemical and rare earth feedstock handling, inter-area WIP movement, and magnet packaging. Define WIP locations, buffer sizing, and staging areas between Metallization, Magnet Production, and Machining. Establish storage strategy including racking, bulk storage, hazardous material segregation, environmental controls, and location addressing. Specify material handling equipment (forklifts, tuggers, lifts, containers) and traffic patterns ensuring safe movement at production rate.
**ERP and WMS Configuration**: Own functional configuration of ERP and warehouse management systems including item masters, units of measure, storage locations, put-away and picking logic, and transaction types. Build and govern item, location, and BOM-linked master data with controls for accuracy at scale. Establish lot genealogy from incoming feedstock through finished magnet to support customer, defense, and rare earth sourcing documentation. Deploy barcode or RFID labeling and mobile scanning. Partner with Automation & Digital Manufacturing on ERP-MES integration and with Finance on inventory valuation. Own testing, training, go-live, and stabilization.
**Warehouse and Material Movement Operations**: Own inbound receiving including carrier scheduling, dock management, receipt/inspection coordination, bulk chemical transfer, and hazardous material compliance. Own WIP material movement between process areas to defined service standards. Own outbound operations including finished goods packaging, labeling, load planning, carrier management, and export documentation specific to magnetized product. Establish cycle counting, physical inventory, and reconciliation practices; own inventory record accuracy as a measured outcome.
**Planning, Scheduling, and Inventory Control**: Build the materials planning function including demand signals, reorder policy, safety stock strategy, and supplier performance management. Establish production scheduling interfaces with Operations areas so material availability supports the build plan. Own inventory levels and turns across raw material, WIP, and finished goods as a deliberate working capital position.
**Organization Design and Development**: Recruit, select, and onboard the organization as it scales to 167 people, sequenced against line startup and volume ramp. Build training and qualification programs including forklift and powered equipment certification, hazardous material handling, system transaction discipline, and station-by-station qualification with requalification intervals.
**Safety, Budget, and Performance**: Own safety performance for material handling workforce including powered industrial truck operations, pedestrian separation, manual handling, ergonomics, and hazardous material handling. Own the Production Controls operating budget including labor, overtime, packaging materials, freight, and equipment lease/maintenance. Own performance measures including inventory record accuracy, on-time delivery, and cost management.
The role requires regular presence on the production floor, ability to navigate all facility areas, climb stairs, stand and walk for extended periods, work in hot/humid/noisy environments, and use personal protective equipment including respirators.
**Requirements**
- Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export-controlled information or facilities
- Demonstrated ownership of an ERP or WMS implementation with experience configuring item and location master data, defining transaction flows, and driving adoption through go-live
- Greenfield or major expansion experience designing material flow into new facilities
- Experience in defense, aerospace, or regulated supply chains with chain-of-custody, country-of-origin, or DFARS-type documentation requirements
- Familiarity with bulk chemical handling and shipping magnetized product under DOT and IATA requirements
- APICS CPIM, CSCP, or CLTD certification (preferred)
- Lean or Six Sigma certification with applied material flow or inventory projects (preferred)
- Experience deploying barcode, RFID, or automated material handling systems (preferred)
