Federal Prisons Run Real Manufacturing Operations — and One in NC Needs a Manager
Federal Prisons Run Real Manufacturing Operations — and One in NC Needs a Manager
Most people have never heard of UNICOR, but it's a real federal government corporation — Federal Prison Industries — that runs actual factories inside Bureau of Prisons institutions, producing goods like clothing and textiles for government customers. The Production Control Manager role at FCC Butner is a genuine supply-chain and manufacturing management job; the fact that it operates inside a correctional facility is almost secondary to the work itself.
Open to all U.S. citizens. This is a Delegated Examining announcement — no prior federal or corrections experience required. The standard maximum entry age of 36 for Bureau of Prisons institutional roles applies, with an exemption for preference-eligible veterans with prior federal law enforcement coverage.
Real supply chain management, inside a federal institution
UNICOR's Clothing and Textiles Business Group runs multiple factory operations, and this role manages the material planning and inventory side of that business across all of them. That means overseeing physical inventory, contributing to budgeting decisions that affect manufacturing output, and making sure raw materials actually arrive when production schedules need them. You'd report through the Clothing and Textiles Assistant General Manager, with the General Manager as secondary supervision — a real corporate-style chain of command, not a typical correctional org chart.
Beyond materials management, you'd develop and deliver training for factory staff across the business group, and work directly with Product Managers on planning and forecasting so that customer deliveries actually arrive on schedule and meet expectations. UNICOR sells primarily to federal agencies under mandatory-source procurement rules, which means there are real customers and real delivery commitments behind this work, not just internal institutional operations.
This is an industrial management job first
- Production or plant managers — experience managing or supervising production operations, or doing industrial or plant engineering work involving facility layout, transfers directly.
- Supply chain and procurement professionals — experience evaluating vendors, managing lead times and supply interruption risk, and interpreting government acquisition regulations maps closely onto the qualifying experience.
- Quality control and inventory managers — experience planning and administering industrial quality control programs, or safeguarding materials through proper receipt, storage, and cycle counts, covers another major piece of the role.
A degree in business administration, industrial management, engineering, or applied sciences satisfies the basic requirement, but there's no education substitute for the year of specialized supervisory-level experience required on top of it.
Category rating, with no separate timed assessment
Your application is evaluated under DOJ's Category Rating procedures — Best Qualified, Highly Qualified, and Qualified — based on your resume and online questionnaire responses. There's no separate USA Hire assessment for this role. The competencies being measured include knowledge of manufacturing processes and plant layout, written and oral communication, the ability to analyze information and make recommendations, knowledge of government and commercial standards, and the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize.
A supervisory role with relocation expectations
As a supervisory position, you'll serve a one-year probationary period as a new supervisor regardless of prior federal tenure, and you're subject to geographic relocation to meet agency needs. Beyond the standard panel interview, physical, urinalysis, and background investigation, new hires complete the three-week "Introduction to Correctional Techniques" training course at Glynco, Georgia — standard for nearly all Bureau of Prisons institutional staff.
Genuinely transferable industrial management experience
UNICOR operates factories across dozens of Bureau of Prisons institutions nationwide, so this experience transfers cleanly to similar roles elsewhere in the program. It's also straightforwardly transferable to private-sector manufacturing, supply chain, and operations management roles — the skills built here aren't corrections-specific, which makes this one of the more portable federal career paths on this site.
Application steps
- Sign in to USAJOBS and select Apply Online on the official announcement.
- Submit a resume of no more than two pages with complete employment dates and hours per week.
- Complete the online questionnaire as part of the application.
- Attach veterans' preference or CTAP/ICTAP documentation if they apply to you.
Get the full preparation guide
A free PDF covering how to frame industrial and supply chain experience for this announcement, plus what to expect during onboarding.
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Posted June 20, 2026. Always confirm eligibility, deadlines, and application steps on the official USAJOBS announcement before applying. See our Disclaimer for more.