Production Readiness Lead

Job Title: Production Readiness Lead

Location: Rugeley

Salary: £DOE

The Role

Are you experienced in scaling production within complex engineering environments? As a dedicated talent partner to ESCO Maritime, we are looking to hire a Production Readiness Lead to drive their capability to meet increasing programme demand and production rates.

This is a pivotal role where you will lead a cross-functional readiness programme, ensuring engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, test, and facilities are fully aligned and capable of delivering safely, reliably, and at scale.

What you will be doing:

• Define and deliver the production readiness strategy to support growth
• Lead cross-functional coordination across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, and more
• Drive structured readiness planning (scope, schedule, cost, dependencies)
• Implement methodologies such as APQP, Lean, and value stream mapping
• Oversee production trials, pilot runs, and run-at-rate readiness
• Identify capability gaps and implement solutions across people, process, and systems
• Lead readiness reviews, reporting, and stakeholder engagement (internal & customer-facing)

What we are looking for:

• Proven experience in production ramp-up, industrialisation, or manufacturing readiness
• Strong understanding of engineering-to-manufacturing transition
• Experience in complex, regulated environments (defence, aerospace, marine desirable)
• Knowledge of APQP, Lean, Six Sigma or similar
• Excellent planning, stakeholder management, and communication skills
• Ability to operate both strategically and hands-on

If you are someone who can bring structure to complexity and drive real production outcomes, this is the opportunity for you.

***PLEASE NOTE***

Security Clearance (SC) or eligibility to gain is required to be considered for this vacancy