About the Role:

Cornext makes and sells baling equipment across India. We also run silage manufacturing units, trade stretch film, and hold institutional contracts with government gaushalas and municipal bodies across multiple states. It is a messy, fast-moving business with real customers, real deadlines, and no room for theoretical solutions.

Our baling machines operate in remote locations. When something goes wrong, the farmer or the contractor calls us. What that means for manufacturing is simple: the product has to be right before it leaves the factory. We need someone who takes that personally.

This role owns the full manufacturing function. From assembly quality and vendor reliability to production scheduling, cost per unit, and delivery timelines. We are growing fast and the systems need to keep up. The person who joins will largely build those systems themselves.

What You Will Own:

Factory & Assembly:

- Run the assembly of bale machines and agri equipment. Quality, throughput, and cost per unit are yours to own.

- Write the SOPs where they don't exist. Fix the ones that aren't working. The floor should reflect your standards.

- Production planning should track actual sales orders, not just rolling forecasts. You will stay close to the sales pipeline.

- Floor discipline - attendance, safety, documentation is non-negotiable and starts with you.

Vendors & Procurement:

- Build a supply base that doesn't leave you exposed. We have had single-vendor situations create production stops. That needs to change.

- You will be managing 2-3 white-label OEM partners at any given time. Pricing, quality compliance, dispatch timelines - all on you.

- Negotiate hard. Our margins depend on it.

- Inventory planning should mean no stockouts and no dead stock. Both are costly.

Delivery:

- When we commit a delivery date to a customer, we honour it. When something threatens that, you own the recovery.

- Handoff to logistics, service, and installation teams should be smooth. You will build the coordination to make that happen.

- Field failures and warranty claims should feed back into how you build. We want that loop to be tight.

Product & R&D:

- New machines get designed with you in the room. What is buildable, at what cost, at what volume - that voice needs to be yours.

- Production of new designs: tooling, BOM finalisation, vendor qualification. You take the prototype and make it manufacturable.

- We are working on integrating IoT-based monitoring and machine learning into our next product generation. You do not need to be a technology expert. You do need to be curious, and willing to work with people who are.

Cost & Budget:

- You will hold a manufacturing cost budget. Know your cost per unit. Know where it is going and why.

- Make-vs-buy decisions should have clear financial reasoning behind them, not just operational convenience.

- As we scale, capex planning will need to happen further ahead. You will work with the founders on that.

What We Are Looking For:

Must Have:

- Real experience in Agri machinery manufacturing (balers, harvesters, threshers - 5-30 lakh range)

- Set up or meaningfully scaled a factory or assembly operation

- Managed white-label OEM partners end-to-end

- Owned production schedules with hard customer commitments

- Led mixed teams: floor workers, service technicians, installation crew

- B. Tech in Mechanical or Agricultural Engineering (non-negotiable)

Good to Have:

- Startup or growth-stage manufacturing background

- ERP or MES exposure (even basic production tracking)

- Lean or Six Sigma - only if applied on the floor, not just certified

What Good Looks Like:

- Competency : At Cornext, this means:

Factory P&L Ownership:

- Cost per unit, yield efficiency, and delivery SLA accountability

Vendor & Supply Chain:

- Building resilient multi-vendor networks for components and sub-assemblies

Production Scaling:

- Ramping output 2-3x without sacrificing quality

Cross-functional Leadership:

- Sales alignment, service coordination, R&D co-development

Problem-solving Under Pressure:

- Field escalations, supply disruptions, tight delivery windows