Very successful and growing manufacturing company with over 500 employees has an excellent opportunity available for a Continuous Improvement Manager. The Continuous Improvement Manager is the primary driver of the production system, responsible for driving and facilitating continuous improvement initiatives through Kaizen and problem-solving events, lean tools and practices to identify waste and increase process efficiencies to lower operational costs and expand manufacturing capabilities.
Essential Functions & Responsibilities:
- Primary resource (sensei) for supporting site through the implementation of the production system. This position will work closely with all functional areas and departments to ensure consistency and sustainability.
- Direct, lead and facilitate CI activities utilizing hands-on approach through lean improvement techniques such as Kaizen events, GEMBA, 5S, problem solving, data-based decision making to support optimizing and sustaining Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost (SQDC).
- Establish, maintain and lead the KPO as well as the CI Council.
- Closely support Daily Management Tier Process.
- Implement corrective actions to improve and sustain safety, quality and productivity through collection and analysis of production data.
- Utilize statistical tools to evaluate performance of processes and products.
- Optimize manufacturing environment through standard work and training efficiency while coordinating with training, engineering, maintenance, and operations teams through a hands-on, shop floor approach.
- Lead significant projects at the site related to material movement to warehouse, rationalization, site layout improvements, and industrialization of new products or other significant projects as assigned.
- Support implementation of capital procurements for the operation and facility, working closely with the plant operations, new product development, engineering, finance, and purchasing teams to assist with both short ad long-term capital plans and execute.
- Work cross-functionally with floor team members, leadership, and engineering to optimize manufacturing environment and business systems.
- Support operational planning for improvements, capital investments, equipment, processes, and project management.
- Primary Continuous Improvement Leader for site operations facility with capability of conducting coaching for other sites as needed.
- Provides practical, hands-on training to associates in methodology and tools to eliminate waste in all administrative, manufacturing and support functions.
- Support corporate training development and education initiatives as needed.
- Lead or participate in operations business process activities.
- Lead events with various business support entities and be the leader to drive change and influence the adoption and implementation of lean concepts.
- Possess strong communication and presentation skills at all levels of the organization and can break down highly technical discussion into understandable concepts for non-technical colleagues.
- Works closely with finance department and possesses knowledge of financial indicators and analysis as they pertain to capital planning, fixed asset management ad budget development/management, including alignment of CI activities to support AOP.
- SQF/ISO requirements compliance.
Preferred Education & Experience:
- Bachelor's degree required; Engineering is a plus.
- 10+ years' experience in manufacturing.
- 5+ years' in CI leadership with deep TPS experience.
- Must have led a minimum of 20 Kaizen events.
- Must have extensive experience in Daily Management processes or Tier structured daily meetings (T1-4).
- Six Sigma Black Belt Certification (preferred).
- Must have a solid understanding of Lean Principles such as Value Stream Mapping, Just-In-Time, Demand Flow, Single Piece Flow, 5S, Visual Management, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Continuous Improvement Process, Kaizen, SPC, Six Sigma (DMAIC), and Problem Solving.
- Preferred experience with DMAIC such as FMEA, MSA, Minitab or JMP Software, Data Analysis, SPC, Pareto, Ishikawa, SIPOC, VOC, t-tests, ANOVA, Regression, DOE, Control Charts.
- Preferred substantial exposure to best practices across multiple companies and manufacturing environments through employment experience, comprehensive benchmarking, or engagement with external organizations related to TPS Lean such as ASME, APICS, etc.
- Experience leading capital projects, process improvement initiative and ongoing value engineering opportunities.
- Experience within the packaging, food, or pharmaceutical industries is required.
- Ability to occasionally respond to emergencies off-hours, especially week-ends.
