Job offer
Are you a finance professional who enjoys working close to operations and influencing business performance?
We're looking for a Plant Operations Controller to provide operational finance leadership and financial control support to a manufacturing plant that does not have a local finance team.
In this role, you will act as the on-site finance business partner to plant leadership while working closely with the Global Finance Services function for transactional accounting, financial reporting support, and standard finance processes.
The role focuses on translating financial information into practical operational insights, strengthening cost discipline, improving visibility into plant KPIs, and supporting data-driven decisions related to productivity, inventory, working capital, and continuous improvement.
What You'll Be Responsible For
Partnering with Operations to Drive Performance
- Serve as the on-site finance business partner to plant operations, providing clear financial insight into production performance, cost drivers, productivity, inventory, and working capital (inventory and procurement areas).
- Act as the key plant finance interface with the Global Finance Services function, ensuring required inputs, explanations, reconciliations, and operational context are provided timely and accurately.
- Review plant financial results prepared through the shared finance model, validate operational accuracy, and explain key variances to plant and global operation leadership.
- Analyse operational and financial performance against budget, forecast, standards, and prior periods; identify root causes of variances and partner with operations to define corrective actions.
- Support daily, weekly, and monthly operational reviews by translating financial data into practical insights for plant leadership and shop-floor management.
- Partner with production, supply chain, purchasing, and quality teams to identify cost reduction opportunities, improve process efficiency, and strengthen operational execution.
Cost Accounting & Financial Analysis
- Calculation of labour and overhead rates.
- Monitor standard costs creation and review of related variances, analysis of production variances, including project variances, absorption, scrap, rework, review of inventory valuation, and margin analysis.
- Produce plant performance dashboards and KPIs, including productivity, labour efficiency, material usage, overhead spending, inventory turns, slow-moving inventory, on-time delivery impact, and cost savings.
- Challenge plant spending, headcount, overtime, scrap, freight, inventory levels, and other controllable cost areas to drive financial accountability.
Planning, Inventory & Investment Support
- Lead the plant input process for annual budget, rolling forecast, and long-range planning.
- Support inventory management through cycle count analysis, physical inventory coordination, excess and obsolete inventory review, and controls over raw material, work-in-process, and finished goods.
- Review and support capital expenditure requests, business cases, payback analyses, capex project tracking, and post-completion reviews to ensure expected benefits are achieved.
Controls, Compliance & Continuous Improvement
- Maintain and improve internal controls across plant operations, including inventory, purchasing, production reporting, capital assets, and plant-related financial transactions, in coordination with Global Finance Services where applicable.
- Coordinate internal and external audit requirements for plant-related processes and ensure timely resolution of findings or control gaps.
- Drive process improvements in reporting, controls, forecasting, and operational finance processes to improve decision support across the plant.
What Success Looks Like
- Accurate and timely plant financial reporting, close coordination, and operational performance analysis through the shared finance model.
- Effective coordination with Global Finance Services, with clear ownership of plant inputs, explanations, and operational context.
- Clear visibility into plant cost drivers, productivity, labor efficiency, scrap, inventory, and working capital.
- Improved budget, forecast, and variance management with practical corrective actions.
- Strong cost accounting, inventory controls, and compliance with company financial policies.
- Measurable contribution to cost reduction, productivity improvement, inventory optimization, and margin performance.
- Effective financial support for capital investment decisions and post-project benefit tracking.
- High level of credibility and collaboration with plant operations, supply chain, quality, Global Finance Services, and regional finance leadership.
What Will Help You Succeed
Key Competencies
- Operations Partnership: Builds strong working relationships with plant leadership and shop-floor teams and provides practical finance support to improve operational decisions.
- Shared Services Coordination: Works effectively with Global Finance Services to ensure accurate, timely, and well-explained plant financial information.
- Manufacturing Financial Acumen: Demonstrates strong understanding of cost drivers, standard costing, labour and overhead absorption, inventory, scrap, productivity, and margin performance.
- Analytical Thinking: Identifies trends, risks, opportunities, and root causes through data-driven analysis of operational and financial performance.
- Commercial and Operational Discipline: Challenges assumptions, reviews controllable costs, and supports decisions that improve profitability and working capital.
- Accountability: Maintains high standards for accuracy, compliance, timeliness, and ownership of plant financial processes, even when activities are executed through shared services.
- Influencing and Communication: Presents financial and operational information clearly to both finance and non-finance stakeholders and influences action without relying solely on authority.
- Continuous Improvement: Challenges existing processes and drives improvements in reporting, controls, forecasting, and operational performance management across the plant and shared service model.
- Demonstrates Norican's GROW behaviours: Go Further, Raise the Bar, Own It and Win Together.
What We're Looking For
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field.
- CPA, CMA, MBA, or other relevant professional certification are an advantage.
- Minimum of 5 years of progressive finance, accounting, cost accounting, or operations finance experience, preferably in a manufacturing environment.
- Experience operating in a shared services or centralized finance support model, with the ability to coordinate effectively across plant and Global Finance Services teams.
- Experience with standard costing updates, inventory controls, physical inventory processes, and operational KPI design.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, cost drivers, standard costing, inventory valuation, variance analysis, and plant performance metrics.
- Experience supporting manufacturing operations through budgeting, forecasting, KPI reporting, productivity analysis, and working capital management.
- Experience supporting capital investment analysis and make-versus-buy decisions.
- Experience with ERP systems (FO365 preferred) and advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel; experience with reporting or business intelligence tools is a plus.
- Solid understanding of internal controls, audit processes, accounting principles, and financial compliance requirements.
- Ability to connect financial results with operational activity and communicate insights clearly to finance and non-finance stakeholders.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, business partnering, and influencing skills.
- Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced plant environment and collaborate across production, supply chain, quality, shared services, and leadership teams.
What We Offer
- A supportive and collaborative team environment
- Employment within a global industrial technology company with a strong market position
- Opportunities for professional and personal development, including language courses and continuous learning
- Five weeks of vacation to support a healthy work-life balance and four paid sick days per year
- Flexible working arrangements, including the possibility of working from home
- Competitive compensation package, including an annual performance bonus
- Employer contribution to pension savings, supplementary pension insurance, or DIP (4% of base salary)
- Discounted mobile phone plans for employees and their family members
- MultiSport card with employer contribution to support health and wellbeing
- Company-subsidized meals available on-site
- Access to cultural and sporting events
- Convenient location with public transport access and secure on-site parking, including covered parking for bicycles and motorcycles