Few companies can trace as compelling a growth story as Olam International. What began in 1989 as a single-product trading operation, moving cashew from Nigeria into India, has grown into a leading global agri-business operating from seed to shelf across 65 countries, supplying food and industrial raw materials to more than 13,800 customers worldwide, powered by a workforce of 23,000 employees. This kind of scale and legacy makes any senior manufacturing role within Olam’s operations a genuinely significant career opportunity, and that’s exactly what’s on offer with the company’s current search for a Production Manager based in Amuwo Odofin, Lagos.
This is a senior, highly specialized manufacturing leadership role, demanding substantial technical expertise and proven experience managing complex, high-speed production operations within the FMCG sector.
Understanding Olam Nigeria Limited’s Manufacturing Operations
While Olam International’s broader business spans agricultural sourcing, processing, and distribution across dozens of countries, this particular Production Manager role, based at Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, and requiring specific experience with high-speed PET bottling lines and Tetrapak lines, points clearly to a beverage or liquid food manufacturing operation, likely involving aseptic dairy or related liquid product processing. This kind of manufacturing facility represents a genuinely sophisticated, technically demanding production environment, requiring specialized equipment expertise and rigorous operational discipline to run effectively.
Given Olam’s stated leadership position across many of the businesses it operates in, this manufacturing facility likely represents an important part of the company’s Nigerian operations, contributing directly to its ability to supply quality food products within the local market and potentially beyond.
The Job at a Glance
Here’s a quick overview of the opportunity before exploring the substantial responsibilities and requirements in detail:
- Job Title: Production Manager
- Company: Olam Nigeria Limited
- Job Field: Engineering / Technical, Manufacturing
- Location: Amuwo Odofin, Lagos
- Employment Type: Full Time
- Minimum Qualification: BE/B.Tech (Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering)
- Experience Required: 10+ years
- Application Method: Apply through careers.olamgroup.com
With the overview established, let’s take a comprehensive look at what this senior manufacturing role genuinely demands and what kind of candidate Olam Nigeria Limited is hoping to find.
What Does the Production Manager Actually Do?
The job description frames the role’s overarching purpose clearly: ensuring compliance to the company’s manufacturing processes and procedures, with the objective of achieving key performance indicators in collaboration with all stakeholders, achieved through constantly developing, planning, and implementing operational excellence and training of plant personnel. The listing organizes the specific deliverables into three major functional areas.
Production Planning and Execution
This is the most extensive and operationally central pillar of the role, encompassing a wide range of production management responsibilities.
The Production Manager plans to deliver on sales demand while ensuring effective utilization of assets at optimum cost of operations, balancing the need to meet commercial demand with genuine efficiency and cost discipline in how production resources are deployed. This requires close liaison with central and local procurement teams for effective planning of raw and packing materials, ensuring consistent availability while also monitoring inventory norms, preventing both costly overstocking and disruptive material shortages.
The role requires analyzing breakdowns and implementing corrective measures to improve OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), a critical manufacturing performance metric that measures how effectively production equipment is being utilized. The Production Manager also leads the AM (Autonomous Maintenance) Pillar team within the company’s WCM (World Class Manufacturing) or Operational Excellence framework, while supporting other pillars on production-related requirements, reflecting the structured, methodology-driven approach to manufacturing improvement that Olam evidently employs across its operations.
Beyond production execution itself, the Production Manager maintains control over warehouses for raw and packing materials as well as finished goods, ensures compliance with Safety and Food Safety requirements specifically from the manufacturing function, and ensures adherence to all applicable regulatory and statutory requirements governing the facility’s operations. Finally, this pillar includes reviewing and monitoring operating budgets, placing meaningful financial oversight responsibility alongside the role’s operational and technical leadership functions.
Managing Talent
Beyond the technical and operational dimensions of the role, the Production Manager carries significant people leadership responsibility. This includes developing and training the team to improve the effectiveness of implementing best and next practices within their area of work, and identifying training needs of team members specifically to enhance skills and develop or maintain a genuinely motivated team.
This talent management responsibility reflects the reality that even the most sophisticated manufacturing processes and technology ultimately depend on a well-trained, engaged workforce to execute them effectively, making this people development function a genuinely important complement to the role’s more technical production responsibilities.
Driving Cost Culture and Value Delivery
Financial discipline runs throughout this role, and this specific deliverable area focuses on reviewing requirements of production consumables and ensuring their availability, alongside reviewing the cost of these production consumables and ensuring adherence to budgets. This responsibility ensures that the facility’s day-to-day operational costs remain properly managed and aligned with broader financial expectations.
Projects
Finally, the Production Manager carries meaningful responsibility within capital and operational expenditure projects. This includes involvement in the selection of Capacity, Capability, Appropriate Technology, and Energy requirements for both Opex (Operational Expenditure) and Capex (Capital Expenditure) Projects, working alongside the Engineering team as needed. The role also involves executing the implementation of projects within established timelines and cost parameters, with support from the Engineering Team, and assisting in the commissioning and start-up of new projects, reflecting the role’s involvement not just in ongoing production operations, but in the facility’s broader growth and technological development over time.
What Olam Nigeria Limited Is Looking For
Given the genuinely senior, technically demanding nature of this role, the qualification requirements are correspondingly rigorous and specific.
Educational Background
The minimum qualification is a BE/B.Tech (Bachelor of Engineering or Bachelor of Technology) in Mechanical, Electrical, or Production Engineering from a reputed institute. This technical engineering foundation reflects the genuinely hands-on, equipment-intensive nature of the production environment this role oversees.
10+ Years of FMCG Experience, With Specific Leadership Tenure
Candidates need 10 or more years of experience within reputable FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) companies, with a stated preference for experience specifically within bottling or aseptic dairy products. Within this broader experience requirement, candidates must have a minimum of 3 years specifically as Head of Manufacturing or Production department, ensuring candidates bring genuine, proven senior leadership experience overseeing manufacturing operations, not merely general production experience without this specific leadership tenure.
Experience Managing High-Speed PET Bottling Lines and Tetrapak Lines
This is a particularly specific and important technical requirement: candidates need direct experience managing high-speed PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottling lines and Tetrapak lines. These represent sophisticated, high-throughput packaging technologies commonly used within beverage and liquid food manufacturing, and genuine, hands-on experience operating and managing these specific systems is essential given the likely nature of Olam’s manufacturing operations at this facility.
Hands-On TPM or WCM/Operational Excellence Implementation Experience
The listing states clearly that hands-on experience implementing TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) or WCM (World Class Manufacturing)/Operational Excellence methodologies is a must, not merely an advantage. Given the earlier mention of the AM Pillar team within the role’s core responsibilities, this requirement reflects Olam’s evident commitment to structured, internationally recognized manufacturing excellence frameworks, and candidates need genuine, practical experience implementing these methodologies rather than purely theoretical familiarity.
Additionally, exposure to Lean or Six Sigma methodologies is noted as an added advantage, further reinforcing the company’s evident emphasis on continuous improvement and manufacturing excellence disciplines.
Bottling Plant Experience, Preferably Aseptic Dairy Technology
The listing specifically seeks experience managing the production function of a bottling plant, preferably one involving aseptic dairy technology with Tetrapak and Sidel bottling lines. This detailed specification reinforces just how technically specific and specialized this role’s required background genuinely is, pointing clearly toward candidates with direct experience in exactly this kind of manufacturing environment.
Strong People Management Skills
Given the substantial talent management responsibilities embedded within this role, strong people management skills are essential, supporting the Production Manager’s ability to develop, train, and motivate their production team effectively.
Demonstrated Ability to Manage Complexity
The listing explicitly requires a demonstrated ability to manage complexity, reflecting the genuinely multifaceted nature of this role, spanning production execution, talent development, cost management, and project involvement simultaneously, all within a technically sophisticated manufacturing environment.
Strong Analytical and Problem-Solving Skills
Given the significant breakdown analysis, OEE improvement, and broader operational troubleshooting responsibilities embedded throughout this role, strong analytical and problem-solving skills are essential.
Good Communication and Negotiation Skills
Finally, good communication skills and good negotiation skills are required, supporting the role’s significant cross-functional collaboration with procurement, engineering, and broader stakeholder teams, as well as its people leadership and vendor or resource-related negotiation responsibilities.
Understanding the Application Process
Interested and qualified candidates should apply directly through Olam Nigeria Limited’s official careers portal at careers.olamgroup.com. As a large, established multinational agri-business, Olam’s application process through this official corporate careers platform likely involves a structured, multi-stage recruitment process, and prospective applicants should ensure their application materials, particularly their CV, clearly and comprehensively reflect the specific technical qualifications and experience this role demands.
Why This Role Offers Genuine Executive-Level Career Value
For manufacturing professionals with deep expertise in high-speed bottling operations and aseptic dairy or beverage production technology specifically, this Production Manager role at Olam Nigeria Limited offers an exceptional opportunity to apply highly specialized technical and leadership expertise within a genuinely global, industry-leading agri-business. Success in this role would place a candidate at the helm of a sophisticated manufacturing operation within one of the world’s most established agri-business conglomerates, offering substantial professional prestige alongside the technical and leadership challenge itself.
Given Olam’s stated scale, operating across 65 countries with 23,000 employees, this role also offers potential candidates meaningful visibility and career growth potential within a genuinely large, internationally connected organisation, potentially opening pathways toward broader regional or global manufacturing leadership roles within the Olam Group over time for candidates who perform strongly in this position.
Tips for Applicants Who Want to Stand Out
If you’re considering applying for this Production Manager position, here are some practical tips to strengthen your application.
Clearly document your specific bottling and packaging technology experience. Given how explicitly PET bottling lines, Tetrapak lines, and Sidel equipment are named, be specific about your direct, hands-on experience with these exact technologies in your application.
Demonstrate your TPM or WCM/Operational Excellence implementation track record concretely. Since this is explicitly described as a mandatory requirement, provide specific examples of TPM or WCM initiatives you’ve led or significantly contributed to, along with measurable outcomes achieved.
Highlight your specific tenure as Head of Manufacturing or Production. Given the explicit 3-year minimum requirement in this specific leadership capacity, make sure your CV clearly distinguishes this senior leadership tenure from your broader manufacturing career experience.
Emphasize your aseptic dairy or beverage manufacturing background if applicable. Since this is explicitly preferred, candidates with this specific industry background should make it a clear, prominent part of their application.
Provide examples of OEE improvement and breakdown analysis. Given the explicit responsibility for analyzing breakdowns and improving OEE, share specific examples of how you’ve diagnosed and resolved production issues to improve equipment effectiveness in previous roles.
Show your talent development and team leadership approach. Given the substantial people management responsibilities in this role, share your philosophy and track record around training, developing, and motivating production teams.
Final Thoughts: A Prestigious Manufacturing Leadership Opportunity Within a Global Agri-Business
The Production Manager position at Olam Nigeria Limited offers a genuinely prestigious, technically demanding manufacturing leadership opportunity within one of the world’s leading agri-business conglomerates. Requiring 10 or more years of specialized FMCG manufacturing experience, deep technical expertise with high-speed bottling and packaging technology, and proven Operational Excellence implementation capability, this role represents exactly the kind of senior, high-impact challenge that defines a significant career milestone for experienced manufacturing leaders.
For candidates who bring the right combination of engineering education, specialized bottling and aseptic dairy manufacturing experience, and proven WCM or TPM leadership, this opportunity at Olam Nigeria Limited offers the chance to apply hard-won manufacturing expertise within a genuinely global organisation, one whose remarkable growth story, from a single cashew trading operation in 1989 to a 65-country agri-business empire, reflects exactly the kind of ambitious, excellence-driven culture this Production Manager role is built to sustain and advance.