Plant Manager
LSI Industries · Cranston, RI
- Level
- Manager
- Team
- Production
- Degree
- Required (or equivalent experience)
- Certification
- Black Belt preferred
- Industry
- Industrial
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A management production role at LSI Industries (industrial) in Cranston, RI. Of manufacturing and warehouse space, EMI provides a convenient regional source for millwork, metal and refrigeration products, with national and international capabilities.
- They ask for
- degree required (or equivalent experience) · Black Belt preferred
- Tools it names
- Lean, 5S, Root cause, Welding, Tooling, EHS / safety
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026
Production Engineer roles in the US: typical posted base $114k–$160k.
Median of the low and high ends of 354 live postings that list pay, out of 1091 production engineer openings in the US, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
Rhode Island plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 1090 other live production postings in the US.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- Not stated
Typical $107k–$153k, from 300 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 7+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Team leadership 44%
- ✓ Lean 39%
- ✓ EHS / safety 26%
- ✓ Root cause 24%
- New product launch 20%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
Stands out: this posting asks for 5S, Welding, Tooling, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Production team at LSI Industries
Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.
- 2
Send a short, curious note
One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.
- 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- The posting mentions a Black Belt. Does the company sponsor certification?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
Apply with someone vouching for you
If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
Plant Manager at LSI Industries in other locations
LSI Industries lists this title in 2 places. Pick the plant you can get to.
Full description from LSI IndustriesAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Responsibilities
- ◆Provide strategic and tactical leadership for all plant operations, including receiving, warehouse and inventory management, metal fabrication, wood millwork, assembly, finishing, shipping, and supply chain.
- ◆Plan and sequence production from backlog and customer promise dates. Balance custom jobs through shared equipment and skilled trades so neither the metal shop nor the millwork shop is starved of work or capacity.
- ◆Translate customer drawings, specifications, and engineering packages into shop-ready work, including travelers, cut lists, weldment sequences, hardware kits, and pack lists. Stop work when information is incomplete or unbuildable.
- ◆Foster a culture of safety that meets OSHA and company standards. Lead safety walks, daily safety reviews, and incident investigations with root-cause follow-through.
- ◆Address hazards unique to a mixed metal and wood plant, including welding, grinding, forming, cutting, woodworking machinery, dust, finishing, and material handling. Ensure preventative maintenance is executed so equipment uptime supports custom promise dates.
- ◆Ensure every job is built to the drawing and to customer specification. Read and interpret job orders, technical drawings, weld symbols, millwork elevations, hardware schedules, and finish specifications.
- ◆Partner with Engineering and Sales on design-for-manufacture. Flag costly details, long-lead hardware, and field-fit risks before metal or wood is cut. Support first-article builds and capture actual labor and material for quoting.
- ◆Champion Lean Manufacturing, 5S, visual management, PDCA, and root-cause problem solving in a high-mix, project-based environment. Apply these tools to changeover, kit accuracy, first-pass yield, and information flow.
- ◆Develop and enforce SOPs and standard work where the process repeats (setup, weld quality, finish, pack-out), while using job-specific work instructions on true one-off custom work.
- ◆Build, coach, and evaluate supervisors across production, warehouse, inventory, and shipping/receiving. Develop frontline leadership and a culture of accountability across a 120+ employee, multi-trade workforce.
- ◆Maintain a strong shop-floor presence in both fabrication and millwork. Engage in problem-solving and hands-on support when a custom job is at risk. Staff the plant to the backlog and cross-train related skills where it improves flow.
- ◆Optimize inventory, vendor relationships, and material flow for project work. Use ERP/MRP or equivalent tools for job status, material readiness, and capacity. Partner with Sales, Engineering, Finance, HR, Maintenance, Quality, and IT.
- ◆Drive daily and weekly performance to KPI targets in safety, quality, on-time delivery, first-pass yield, productivity, and cost. Own the plant operating budget and support ROI-based capital requests.
- ◆Perform other duties as assigned to support business needs.
Qualifications
- ✓Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Business, or a related field, or equivalent senior plant leadership experience.
- ✓Ten (10) or more years of progressive manufacturing leadership, including at least five to eight (5–8) years at plant or multi-department leadership level in a facility of 100+ employees.
- ✓Direct experience leading custom, project-based, engineered-to-order, or high-mix / low
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
Build your Career with an Industry Leader
About EMI: EMI, a division of LSI Corporation and part of Retail Solutions, is a leading provider of customer millwork display solutions. EMI Industries is an award-winning metal and millwork manufacturer of standard and customized fixtures, displays and equipment for the restaurant, supermarket and convenience store industries. With five manufacturing locations across the country and 400,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing and warehouse space, EMI provides a convenient regional source for millwork, metal and refrigeration products, with national and international capabilities.
LSI Industries, Inc., an Industry leader headquartered in Cincinnati, is a publicly held company traded over the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the symbol LYTS. The company manufactures advanced lighting, graphics, and display solutions across strategic vertical markets. The company’s American-made products, which include non-residential indoor and outdoor lighting, print graphics, digital graphics, refrigerated and custom displays, help create value for customer brands and enhance the consumer experience. LSI also provides comprehensive project management services in support of large-scale product rollouts. The company employs approximately 3,000 people at 23 manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Canada. Additional information about LSI is available at www.lsicorp.com.
The Cranston, Rhode Island manufacturing location is a strategic component of the millwork and metal work components of customer solutions. With a focus on manufacturing display cases and related products, EMI RI contributes to the success of restaurants, supermarkets, and convenience stores nationwide.
We are looking for a Plant Manager to support our EMI team in Cranston RI.
Position Overview
The Plant Manager leads all day-to-day operations at EMI Industries’ Cranston, Rhode Island manufacturing facility, a project-based custom metal and millwork plant of 120+ employees. Work is engineered-to-order: nearly every job is built to a unique customer drawing rather than a repeating standard unit. This role owns safety, quality, delivery, cost, and people performance across receiving, inventory, metal fabrication, wood millwork, assembly, finishing, and shipping . The Plant Manager must be technically credible in either metal fabrication or wood millwork and willing to become proficient in both, convert custom drawings into executable shop plans, and promote a high-performance culture grounded in continuous improvement and LSI’s core tenets: Sense of Urgency, Attention to Detail, and Respect Others.