Assembly Manager

The Opportunity – Assembly Manager

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About the role: 

As an Assembly Manager at JCB World Headquarters, supporting the Backhoe Loader Assembly operation, you’ll play a pivotal role within the Operations leadership team, leading the assembly function and driving continuous improvement across the area. Safety is at the heart of everything we do, and all applicants must hold IOSH Managing Safely as a minimum requirement.

This is a critical position responsible for ensuring the successful delivery of Backhoe Loaders to our customers while consistently improving quality, productivity, cost performance, and overall operational excellence.

What does this role involve day to day? 

In this role, you’ll be responsible for leading the Backhoe Assembly area to achieve key business objectives across Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, People, and Environment.

Your day-to-day responsibilities will include:

• Championing and driving a strong safety culture across the assembly department

• Leading and implementing lean manufacturing initiatives and continuous improvement activities

• Managing and developing your team, including performance management, absence management, succession planning, and skills development

• Owning departmental budgets, including labour cost per unit and consumable spend

• Ensuring quality standards are achieved through structured problem-solving methodologies, including the closure of 4Cs and implementation of corrective actions

• Monitoring and delivering against KPIs and operational scorecards to achieve business targets

• Supporting the introduction of new products, engineering changes, and product improvement activities within the Backhoe Loader range

• Driving productivity, efficiency, and waste reduction initiatives across the assembly operation

• Conducting appraisals and managing disciplinary, capability, and counselling processes where required

• Working closely with Manufacturing Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, and Production Planning teams to ensure delivery of the production plan

This will be suited to you if… 

• You’re a confident and inspirational leader with the ability to motivate, engage, and develop high-performing teams

• You have a proven track record of leading production teams within a complex assembly or manufacturing environment

• You possess strong knowledge of assembly operations, manufacturing processes, production planning, and resource management

• You have experience working within high-volume manufacturing environments, ideally within automotive, construction equipment, or heavy engineering sectors

• You have hands-on experience implementing lean manufacturing techniques and driving continuous improvement activities

• You’re highly results-driven, with a focus on safety, quality, delivery, cost, and people development

• You can confidently influence stakeholders at all levels and effectively manage priorities within a fast-paced manufacturing environment

What happens next? 

Ordinarily, our Resourcing Team reviews and shortlists CVs. If shortlisted, you’ll speak to one of our Recruiters to discuss the role further. Our interview process usually consists of an initial team’s interview followed by an in-person interview. We’ll keep in touch throughout the process but if you have any questions, please get in touch at recruitment@jcb.com  

What’s in it for you? 

This is your chance to join a company that values expertise not only in rewards but also in real employee care. At JCB you don’t just get a competitive salary, 33 days’ holiday and access to our company pension—you can also use our onsite gym, in-house doctor and dentist. We have an ULEV car scheme available for our employees too. Then there’s the JCB Rewards Hub, which gives you discounts with high street retailers. Feel like biking to work? There’s our Cycle to Work Scheme. 

We value diversity and welcome applications from candidates from all backgrounds. 

We’re committed to ensuring our recruitment process is fair and inclusive. If you face any accessibility challenges with your online application and require additional support, you have the option of speaking to a member of our Recruitment Team who can support you to complete an application in an alternative format. If you would benefit from this support, please email recruitment@jcb.com, and a member of the team will be in touch. 

Recruitment Agencies: JCB does not accept any speculative approaches to present candidates for advertised vacancies.