Job Details

Now is the time to step up and take ownership of this purpose-built vehicle production facility, backed by a group ready to help you double it.

The Short Version

General Manager | Smithfield, NSW | $170k-$180k + Car + Bonus + Super

Make this site your own. Full P&L ownership, a loyal team, and the opportunity to take it further than it's ever been

Why This One's Worth A Look

If you're ready to own your own site, this is a rare one: strong backing, established systems, and a business that's already proven what good looks like elsewhere in the group.

What's missing isn't investment or infrastructure, it's the person who takes it forward. That's the opportunity in front of you, to take this site, and grow it.

This group builds purpose-built vehicles and equipment used across several critical industries, and its other sites take on equally serious, high-stakes engineering work. It's the kind of business where the work itself gives you something to be proud of.

This site already performs well. The opportunity is to make it excellent: sharper systems, stronger capability, a team that keeps developing. You'll get exposure across the whole business, not just this site, and as Sydney grows, so does your own opportunity within the group.

• Location: Smithfield area, Southwestern Sydney

• Salary Range: $170k-$180k + Car + Bonus + Super

• Real autonomy to run the site your way, with a CEO who stays close enough to help, not hover

• Backing from a wider group: other sites to learn from, a seat at senior leadership discussions, and room to grow your own career as the site grows

• Monday to Friday, no weekend production, real work-life balance

The Impact You'd Make

This is an established site with good foundations and an experienced, capable team. Early on, most of your time will be in the detail and on the floor, learning how the site runs first, then looking for opportunities to improve. As you build those foundations, the balance shifts, more time with customers, more focus on growth and new opportunities

• Own full P&L and capital expenditure for a standalone manufacturing site building bespoke, purpose-built vehicles. No two builds are quite the same

• Lead an experienced trades team, welders, spray painters, vehicle body builders, who know this work like the back of their hand and expect a leader who understands

• Sharpen the way the site runs day to day: clearer workflow, better visual management on the floor, and a steady focus on best practice and efficiency

• Own the full cycle, from the initial tender and quote through to build, delivery, and servicing, with design, engineering, procurement and sales teams alongside you every step

• Take an already solid $10M site and set out to double it. If you outgrow this facility, the business will back a bigger, purpose built one. The sky is the limit here

This is a build-and-grow role, not a caretaker one. A great step for someone who wants to own a site, sharpen how it runs, and keep growing right alongside it.

What You'll Bring

This suits an experienced Operations Manager or Manufacturing Manager ready for their first true P&L and site to own, or someone earlier in their General Manager career looking to build a site, not just run one.

You've led production teams where every job is different: design and engineering, fabrication and assembly, systems integration, then delivery. Nothing here comes off a fast-moving conveyor line, and you understand what that means for planning each stage and keeping a build on schedule.

Automotive, rail, defence or other bespoke, project-based manufacturing will translate here more directly than FMCG will.

You lead by earning trust. Calm, open and consistent, the kind of leader people choose to follow.

• Confident in an ERP system daily, tracking hours, materials and job progress in detail. Experience with Epicor, SAP or similar would be well regarded

• Strong project management skills: mapping hours, BOM and build sequences against weekly timelines, using tools like Smartsheet or similar

• A clear understanding of how a build moves from design through to delivery, even where the trade detail sits with your team

• Comfortable owning a P&L, or ready to properly own one for the first time, just as at ease in the numbers as you are on the floor

• A leadership style built on trust and consistency, not command and control

Who You'd Be Working With

An established Australian manufacturing group with other sites performing strongly. Support surrounds this role, both on site and from other locations across the group, so while you have full ownership, you're never doing it alone.

This is one of the smaller sites in the group today, and that's the opportunity: less legacy, more room to shape it your way, and a solid platform to keep growing yourself as the site grows.

On site, you are across everything: the floor, the office, every job in the system. Off site, you are the face of this business to its customers, who you will deal with almost daily.

No committees, no red tape, no crisis. Just a good site that needs someone to make it better.

Your Next Move

Click apply below. Reference: CDR-OPS-007

Your next move matters.

Every application is read personally, and you'll hear from me within 7-10 business days.

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