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