Northrop Grumman is in need of an Industrial Engineering Manager 2 to work at its Elkton, Maryland facility.
Northrop Grumman Propulsion Systems and Controls (PS&C) facility in Elkton, Maryland began solid-propellant rocket operations in 1948. Today, the Elkton PS&C facility designs, develops, and produces solid-propellant propulsion and ordnance systems in programs professionally managed for a wide variety of Government and commercial customers. The facility also serves as the hub for offsite engineering and test facilities in Ronkonkoma, NY and Palm Beach Gardens, FL.
Elkton, Maryland is located on the Upper Chesapeake Bay, midway between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Discover charming small towns, parks with miles of trails, specialty and antique shops, award winning restaurants, and inns. You can hike, bike, camp, bird watch, ride horseback, or drop a fishing line. Five rivers, Chesapeake Bay and the C&D Canal can be explored by boat or by land. Experience panoramic views from Turkey Point Lighthouse on a bluff overlooking the Bay, or from the banks of the C&D Canal where ships from around the globe cruise. https://www.ccgov.org/government/tourism
The Industrial Engineering Manager builds, develops, and mentors a high‑performing industrial engineering team that supports the Elkton production system. This role provides strategic direction for the analysis and design of operations—optimizing workflows, standards, and equipment layouts to improve efficiency, increase throughput, and eliminate bottlenecks across the production system.
The manager owns and governs methods and standards that optimize the utilization of facilities, equipment, and personnel—in partnership with Manufacturing, Quality, and Facilities—to strengthen safety culture, reduce cost, increase throughput, and improve product quality across plant operations. They drive improvements and ensure findings translate into practical, repeatable solutions.
The role champions continuous improvement activity by applying lean methodology and design‑for‑manufacturing principles to adopt and standardize practices that are sustained across the production system. The manager sets expectations for standardized use of operational data and simulation tools to develop visual factory metrics, drive data‑based decisions, and manages site capacity and utilization modeling – providing true capacity‑based site planning/scheduling grounded in throughput, capacity, and capability analyses.
The position also drives material‑handling and WIP reduction improvements, supports automation and robotics deployment, and ensures robust TPM practices for critical equipment. Additionally, the manager leads early‑stage Design for Manufacturing (DFM) activities in collaboration with program design teams to ensure new designs align with future capacity and capability.
Success in this position requires a strong focus on accident prevention and safety, along with a well‑balanced blend of technical leadership, people development, operational execution, and continuous improvement within a complex production system.
Core Responsibilities
- Build, develop, and mentor a high‑performing industrial engineering team supporting plant and production operations; set priorities, goals, and performance expectations for the group.
- Provide strategic direction for analysis and design of operations, optimizing workflows and standards base development, and equipment layouts (VSM, line balancing, crew cycling, manufacturing execution/recovery planning, capacity/utilization) to improve efficiency, throughput, and bottleneck removal; review and approve major recommendations.
- Own and govern methods and standards that maximize utilization of production facilities, equipment, and personnel (manpower planning, skill matrices, recovery scheduling, TPM/L2L concepts), ensuring consistent deployment across the site.
- Sponsor and oversee studies in cost control, cost reduction, inventory control, quality improvement, and production record systems; ensure teams translate findings into practical, implemented solutions with measurable impact.
- Champion continuous improvement initiatives, proven knowledge and success using lean tools (current and future state value stream mapping, Kaizen/AIW, 5S/POU, standard work, TPM, RCCA/defect analysis) and drive design for manufacturing improvements to remove roadblocks and ensure alignment with safety, schedule, cost, and quality objectives.
- Set expectations and standardize use of CORE, Tableau, MES data, and simulation tools (e.g., FlexSim) to develop visual shop metrics (including uptime metrics for critical equipment) and drive data‑based decisions, manpower forecasting, and improvement roadmaps; steward the site’s capacity and utilization modeling capability.
- Direct the development and implementation of operating method and facility changes; provide leadership to integrate accident‑prevention and safety improvements into all industrial engineering activities.
- Lead cross‑functional workshops and training, ensuring standardized practices are adopted and sustained across manufacturing, facilities, safety, quality, and supply chain.
- Provide guidance in defining the vision for manufacturing systems architectures; prioritize and sponsor system and workflow improvements that enable data‑driven decisions and shop‑systems maturity.
- Provide management oversight of realistic scheduling and capacity-based site planning and capital-planning efforts (including data mining, ROI/risk justification, and business-case development), ensure effective application of earned-value management (CPI, SPI, TCPI) to monitor schedule and cost performance and support accurate ETC/EAC development, and guide the preparation of refined BOEs for proposals based on throughput, capacity, and capability analyses.
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- Provide management oversight to optimize delivery routes, packaging, and point-of-use logistics using lean solutions, and develop min/max inventory logic for parts consumption to support efficient, continuous material flow.
Basic Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Industrial or Manufacturing Engineering or related STEM field plus 10 or more years of relevant industrial or manufacturing engineering experience. Will consider those with a master’s degree and 8 or more years of relevant industrial or manufacturing engineering experience.
- Demonstrated leadership experience
- Strong industrial engineering and operations background with demonstrated impact in manufacturing and production environments (standards development, workflow analysis, line balancing, layout optimization, simulation, statistical analysis, forecasting), and a track record of directing engineering or manufacturing teams, setting clear-concise priorities, and driving closure on actions.
- Proven ability to translate analytical results into practical, implemented improvements in production operations.
- Regularly applies ingenuity and creativity to resolve novel or high impact issues in manufacturing, cost, quality and safety performance.
- Ability to clearly communicate technical approaches, influence cross functional teams, and prioritize high impact improvements.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills; able to interface effectively at all levels of the organization (i.e provides ongoing and immediate feedback, open sharing of information and knowledge)
- Ability to obtain a Secret clearance, US citizenship is a pre-requisite
Preferred Qualifications:
- Active Secret or higher clearance
- Experience in working in an aerospace manufacturing environment
This position falls under a Federal Explosives License issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for this location. Candidates hired into this role will be required to complete and submit an Employee Possessor Questionnaire to ATF for approval to be a possessor.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related STEM field
- 10 or more years of relevant industrial or manufacturing engineering experience with a bachelor's degree
- Master's degree with 8 or more years of relevant industrial or manufacturing engineering experience may be considered
- Demonstrated leadership experience
- Strong industrial engineering and operations background in manufacturing and production environments
- Experience with standards development, workflow analysis, line balancing, layout optimization, simulation, statistical analysis, and forecasting
- Track record of directing engineering or manufacturing teams and setting priorities
- Ability to translate analytical results into practical production improvements
- Ability to resolve novel or high-impact manufacturing, cost, quality, and safety issues
- Ability to communicate technical approaches and influence cross-functional teams
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Ability to obtain a Secret security clearance
- U.S. citizenship
- Active Secret or higher clearance
- Experience in an aerospace manufacturing environment
Northrop Grumman Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Northrop Grumman and has not been reviewed or approved by Northrop Grumman.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage offers multiple medical plan options by region alongside dental, vision, mental‑health resources, and wellness programs. Recent materials also highlight added family‑building support, including a dedicated fertility benefit.
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Retirement Support — The 401(k) savings plan is positioned as competitive with a company match, auto‑escalation features, and access to an employee stock fund/ESPP. Official filings and benefits guides emphasize retirement as a core element of the Total Rewards package.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Many sites offer a 9/80 schedule, generous PTO, paid holidays, and flexible/telework options where program needs allow. Paid parental and caregiver leave are prominently featured, with recent enhancements for the delivering parent.
Northrop Grumman Insights
What We Do
We are a close-knit community of big thinkers collaborating to keep the world safe. Our passion, creativity and expertise bring next-level technology solutions to life in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, strike, space, and logistics and modernization for our customers around the globe. On the Northrop Grumman team, you’ll join our pursuit of excellence immersed in a dynamic culture of innovation and respect. Your unique perspective will help achieve our shared vision for the future of global security. Every step of the way, you'll be supported by world-class training, employee resource groups and a comprehensive benefits package that enables greater health and happiness for you and your family. Worldwide and across disciplines, we’re challenging what’s possible for technology to protect people and places from undersea to outer space and into cyberspace. And we see the impact of our performance every day. We are Northrop Grumman, and we work on what matters—now, you too can make a difference. Explore opportunities in engineering, IT, manufacturing, business management, cybersecurity and more with us. Northrop Grumman is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.






