Lead financial management for a steel fabrication plant, including standard costing, variance analysis, inventory accounting, month-end close, budgeting, forecasting, controls, capital expenditures, and plant P&L reporting. Manage two staff accountants, approve plant spending, oversee intercompany allocations, advise operations leadership, and ensure accurate financial reporting and asset stewardship.
About the Role
Allied Fabricators, LLC is the domestic fabrication arm of Allied Steel Buildings, producing steel building components at our Texas plant. We are looking for a seasoned Plant Controller to own the financial picture of the factory floor — not just to close the books, but to tell us what a job actually costs, where margin is leaking, and what the inventory is really worth.
This is a hands-on role at a growing operation. You will be the senior finance presence on site, reporting to AFL's VP of Operations and functionally accountable to the EVP of Financial Reporting & Analysis and the CFO. You will need to serve plant priorities and corporate reporting standards at the same time, and hold the line when those pull in different directions.
You will lead a team of two staff accountants and serve as the on-site approval authority for plant spending. Our Texas facility also houses Allied Advanced Systems (AAS), so shared-cost allocation and clean intercompany discipline are part of the job.
What You'll Own
Cost Accounting
- Maintain and refine the standard cost system: material, labor, burden, and overhead rates
- Develop and validate machine-hour and labor-hour burden rates by work center
- Analyze and explain manufacturing variances — purchase price, material usage, labor efficiency, overhead absorption — and drive them to root cause with operations
- Job-level and project-level costing: estimate vs. actual, margin at completion, and the story behind the gap
- Support pricing, make-vs-buy, and capital investment decisions with real cost data
Team & Approval Authority
- Manage, develop, and review the work of two staff accountants — assign close responsibilities, set review standards, and build their capability over time
- Own the plant's purchasing approval workflow: review and approve purchase requisitions and POs within delegated authority, and escalate above-threshold items to corporate with a clear recommendation
- Administer the capital expenditure approval process from request through authorization — verify business case, cost basis, and payback assumptions before anything moves forward
- Verify and sign off on analyses prepared by staff and by operations before they go to plant leadership or corporate
Financial Stewardship & Advisory
- Act as financial advisor to the plant executive team — bring analysis, options, and consequences to decisions on capacity, staffing, pricing, sourcing, outsourcing, and capital before they are committed
- Protect the integrity of AFL's financial results and safeguard the assets behind them: inventory, equipment, and the processes that touch cash
- Question operating decisions the numbers do not support, and require an assumption set, cost basis, and payback on any proposal that spends money
- Be the independent financial voice in the room — willing to be the only dissent when the analysis calls for it, and to carry that view to corporate finance when it is not resolved at the plant
- Translate operating decisions into their P&L, cash, and balance sheet effect so leadership sees the full cost before committing
- Surface risk, exposure, and unfavorable trends to plant leadership and corporate early and directly
Inventory
- Own inventory accounting end to end: raw steel, consumables, WIP, and finished goods
- Run the cycle count program and lead physical inventories; investigate and resolve shrink and count variances
- Monitor inventory valuation, obsolescence, and reserve adequacy
- Partner with purchasing and production control on turns, scrap, and material yield
Close, Reporting & Controls
- Lead the plant month-end close and deliver results to corporate on schedule
- Produce the plant P&L with meaningful commentary — not just numbers, but what happened and what we are doing about it
- Build and report operational KPIs: cost per ton, throughput, labor utilization, scrap rate, on-time production
- Maintain internal controls over inventory, receiving, production reporting, and fixed assets
- Manage intercompany transactions and shared-facility cost allocations (AAS co-location, MSH facility lease, corporate charges)
- Maintain reporting integrity and accounting policy compliance as defined by corporate finance, independent of plant operating pressures
- Support external audit requests and corporate consolidation
- Own the plant's capital expenditure tracking and fixed asset records
Planning
- Build the annual plant operating budget and rolling forecasts
- Model capacity, headcount, and overhead scenarios for plant leadership
- Flag risk early — before it shows up in a variance report
Requirements
Qualifications and Competencies
Required
- Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance
- 7–10 years of progressive accounting experience, with demonstrated advancement in scope and responsibility
- Prior experience as a Controller or Financial Controller
- Experience leading and developing an accounting team
- Demonstrated depth in standard costing, variance analysis, and overhead absorption — this is the core of the job
- Hands-on inventory accounting experience
- Experience owning a full month-end close
- Strong ERP experience and advanced Excel (pivot tables, lookups, modeling)
- Comfort on the shop floor — you will spend real time out there
Preferred
- Manufacturing or industrial plant accounting experience — strongly preferred
- Steel fabrication, metal building, or heavy industrial background
- CPA, CMA, or MBA
- Experience in a multi-entity structure with intercompany allocations
- Familiarity with project or percentage-of-completion revenue recognition (ASC 606)
- Experience standing up or improving a costing system, not just operating one
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