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Yard Manager - Heavy Industrial / Pipe Manufacturing Operations

Little Rock, Arkansas | Full-Time

A heavy manufacturing operation in Little Rock, Arkansas produces large-diameter pipe and structural steel products serving the energy infrastructure and industrial markets. The facility operates a large industrial yard supporting plate and pipe storage, work-in-progress staging, finished goods management, and outbound customer shipments by truck, rail, and barge. This role leads the full scope of yard operations across multiple shifts, reporting to plant or operations leadership and managing a team of supervisors, equipment operators, material handlers, and yard personnel.

Schedule Full-time, plant-based position. Shift coverage includes weekends and customer-critical operational schedules as needed.

What You'll Do

The Yard Manager is accountable for the safe, disciplined, and efficient execution of all yard operations across the facility. Day-to-day responsibilities include overseeing material flow from raw plate and pipe receipt through storage, stacking, work-in-progress transfer, quality hold management, and outbound shipment staging. You will manage the safe handling of heavy materials using cranes, forklifts, loaders, yard trucks, and rigging equipment, and you will ensure all activities conform to HSE standards through pre-shift safety meetings, equipment inspections, traffic control protocols, housekeeping, and safe lifting practices.

Inventory accuracy is a core responsibility. You will maintain disciplined location control and material tracking through SAP or WMS transactions, cycle counts, and physical verification processes, and you will coordinate closely with manufacturing, quality, maintenance, logistics, rail, and port teams to support production continuity and on-time customer delivery. Dispatch readiness, loading coordination, and documentation accuracy are part of daily execution, along with escalating constraints that could affect customer shipments.

You will lead and develop a team that spans multiple shifts, managing manpower allocation, overtime control, shift handoffs, equipment deployment, and daily priorities. You will support hiring, onboarding, training, cross-training, and performance management for yard operations personnel. Continuous improvement is an ongoing expectation: you will drive initiatives focused on reducing re-handling, congestion, dwell time, material damage, overtime, and overall handling cost per ton, and you will use KPI reporting and root-cause analysis to track and improve operational performance, inventory accuracy, safety results, and shipment reliability.

Required Qualifications

• 7 or more years of experience in heavy industrial yard operations, material handling, steel or pipe operations, warehouse operations, rail, truck, or barge loading, or manufacturing support environments
• 3 or more years of supervisory leadership experience managing hourly operations teams in industrial or manufacturing settings
• Demonstrated experience leading large teams of operators, material handlers, and supervisors across multiple shifts in a high-volume operational environment
• Strong working knowledge of heavy equipment operations including cranes, forklifts, loaders, and rigging, as well as pipe and plate stacking, traffic flow management, and industrial housekeeping standards
• Hands-on experience with inventory management systems, SAP, WMS, or comparable ERP platforms, including cycle counting, location control, and material tracking
• Ability to support shift-based operations including weekends and customer-critical schedules
• Strong problem-solving, communication, and cross-functional leadership skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in steel, pipe, line pipe, plate, structural steel, energy infrastructure, rail transloading, port operations, or heavy manufacturing environments
• Experience supporting new facility start-ups, operational ramp-ups, yard expansions, or large-scale logistics operations
• OSHA 10 or 30, forklift certification, crane and rigging certification, rail safety certification, or related industrial safety credentials
• Familiarity with KPI dashboards, 5S methodology, visual management systems, and structured continuous improvement programs

Compensation and Benefits

• Salary: [Confirm with client before posting]
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) with employer contribution (confirm match details with client)
• Paid time off and holidays
• [Add any additional benefits confirmed with client]

To apply, submit your resume and a brief summary of your relevant yard or heavy industrial operations experience.