Chief Operating Officer

About us
Fluid-o-Tech designs and manufactures high-precision pumps and fluid management systems for the medical, beverage, automotive and mission critical industrial markets. We are an engineering-led, family-owned group with operations in Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and China.
Our manufacturing combines precision machining, precision tooling and moulding, assembly and testing. Our plants are highly automated and technically sophisticated. We produce in medium and large series for customers who require a high degree of customization, so managing volume, automation and product variety at the same time is central to how we operate.

The role
The Chief Operating Officer leads the Group's industrial organization. The scope is Group-wide from day one: Corsico, Rovereto, our two plants in China, and our operations in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Direct responsibility is on the Corsico operations. For the other sites, local General Managers hold first-line responsibility for their plants and companies, and the COO leads the industrial agenda across them on a functional, dotted-line basis.
The role covers manufacturing, industrialization, planning and logistics, maintenance and capex, HSE and continuous improvement. Industrialization is the function that brings product engineering into the factory and requires daily cooperation with Engineering and Quality.
We aim to be the best manufacturer in the applications we serve. Quality is how we get there.

Digital transformation and data
Digital transformation is at the centre of this role. We want our plants run on data: what the machines, the processes and the controls tell us, collected properly and used to improve how we work, continuously and in every site. MES and shop-floor data collection, connected to ERP and PLM, are the tools. The COO owns this agenda for the Group.

Functions led
Directly at Corsico, and functionally across all Group plants:
Manufacturing operations
Industrialization
Production planning, warehousing and logistics
Maintenance, facilities and industrial capex
Health, Safety and Environment
Digital manufacturing, Continuous improvement and operational excellence

Requirements
Degree in Engineering
10+ years in operations leadership in discrete manufacturing of precision components
Experience in an international manufacturing environment, with industrial responsibility across more than one country. A career spent in a single Italian plant is not a fit for this role.
Experience leading through local management on remote sites, without direct hierarchical authority
Experience of high-volume, high-variety production on automated lines: many active part numbers, customer-specific configurations, changeover and batch-size management
Experience of digital transformation in manufacturing: shop-floor data collection and its use to improve processes, with measurable results
Experience of industrialization: process qualification, transfer to serial production, engineering change management
Depth in either precision machining or precision tooling and moulding, with working knowledge of the other
Experience under IATF 16949 or ISO 13485
Operational excellence practice (Lean, TPS, WCM or equivalent)
Fluent Italian and English

Location
The role requires daily presence in Corsico, near Milan. Long daily commuting is not compatible with it. We are looking for candidates who live within reasonable reach of the site or who are willing to relocate to the Milan area, including Italian professionals currently working abroad.
Regular travel to the Group's other sites is required.

What we offer
Direct reporting line to the CEO and a seat on the Group leadership team
A defined perimeter with real decision-making authority
Group-wide industrial scope across five countries
A company that invests in its plants and its technology
Dirigente level. Compensation and long-term incentives in line with the seniority of the role. Company car