Ocean and Earth
🤝 TRUSTED by surfers for a lifetime.
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Product Management
Production Manager – Lifestyle Apparel Full Time
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About the Role
Join Ocean & Earth as our Production Manager, where you’ll play a key role supporting our design team and ensuring our lifestyle apparel delivers quality, brand and production performance. . You’ll bridge design and manufacturing to bring our seasonal lines to life.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership & Team Management
- Lead and mentor a cross-functional production team.
- Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Maintain a strong existing surf culture across design team
Production Oversight
- Manage the end-to-end production process from concept design to product delivery for men’s ladies and youth
- Prepare and design initial tech pack setups, including finalized design applications.
- Set up BOMs within tech packs, including color, print details, and trim selection.
- Coordinate graphics and fashion requests.
- Manage initial strike-offs, lab dips, and print placement requests with factories.
- Approve final lab dips, strike-offs, and trims following order placement.
- Develop and manage production schedules aligned with seasonal demand.
- Monitor timelines and ensure quality standards are met.
Vendor & Supply Chain Management
- Build and maintain relationships with domestic and international suppliers.
- Negotiate costs and optimize margins.
- Communicate daily with factories during sample development and pre/post-production phases.
Quality & Compliance
- Implement quality assurance protocols and conduct inspections.
- Ensure compliance with safety standards and sustainability certifications.
Cross-Department Collaboration
- Work closely with design, logistics, sales, and marketing teams to ensure seamless execution.
Innovation & Reporting
- Evaluate new technologies to improve production efficiency.
- Track KPIs and prepare performance reports for management.
- Maintain sample racks, records, print strike-offs, and artwork by season.
Brand & Licensing
- Collaborate with international licensees to ensure brand consistency across markets.
- Review and approve licensed product designs to align with brand guidelines.
- Monitor compliance with brand standards, trademarks, and legal requirements.
- Act as a liaison between internal teams and licensees for artwork, packaging, and seasonal updates.
Qualifications
Must-Have
- Bachelor’s degree in Fashion Production, Textile Science, or related field.
- 5+ years’ experience in apparel production, ideally in lifestyle, outdoor, surf or activewear categories
- Demonstrated leadership and team management experience.
- Strong understanding of garment construction, manufacturing processes, trims, print, and graphics.
- Proficient in Adobe Illustrator, Excel, and experience with PLM/ERP systems.
- Experience with PLM/ERP systems and an understanding of CAD tools.
- Experience working with suppliers/factories (including offshore) and managing vendor relationships and costing.
- A collaborative mindset: you’re confident working with designers, translating design intent into product.
- Budgeting and cost control expertise
- Knowledge of quality assurance and compliance standards.
- Passion for design and fashion with an understanding of the market and end consumers.
- High level of accuracy and attention to detail.
- Negotiation skills and experience optimizing cost, margin and supplier performance
- Must have current Australian work authorisation.
Preferred
- Experience in surf apparel design and production, including performance fabrics and trims.
- Ability to align creative concepts with functional, durable surf apparel
- Familiarity with lean manufacturing principles to improve efficiency and reduce waste.
- Experience with lean manufacturing, production efficiency, and sustainability initiatives.
- Strong vendor negotiation and cost optimization skills.
- Proactive and strategic thinking
- Passion for the outdoors and a genuine connection with a coastal lifestyle, you align with the Ocean & Earth brand culture
- Background in performance fabrics, technical apparel or surf/outdoor product.
Why Join Ocean & Earth?
Ocean & Earth is a heritage surf brand founded in 1979, known for innovation, quality, and authenticity. We’re independently owned and run by surfers for surfers. Our team is passionate, tight-knit, and committed to sustainability and creativity. Joining us means becoming part of a growing brand that values lifestyle, leadership, and the stoke of surf culture.
