Job Description
A fantastic opportunity has arisen for an Associate Director, Operational Excellence for our integrated production system, used for how we design, manage, and continuously improve our operations and supporting business processes, enabled through the development of our people.
The Associate Director, Operational Excellence will work with leaders and sites in their region. Approximately 50% of the time will be spent on the floor providing direct, hands-on support of activities, while 25% will be spent coaching leaders.
Due to the nature of the work and diversity of sites, expected travel will be 50-75%.
Bring energy, knowledge, innovation to carry out the following:
Partner with and consult Functional leaders, Plant Managers and their leadership teams to develop plans and execute performance improvement activities supporting short, mid to long term plans based on state-of-the-art GMPS improvement methods and standards.
Influence and link improvement objectives to the highest division priorities always targeting longer term sustainable performance even though short term improvements are important.
Develop Lean management and people development processes and plans with the objective of enabling the supported area to efficiently operate the continuous improvement system as supposed to simply tools, in a self-reliant way.
Manage end-to-end processes and projects to drive results and realize intended business benefit, short term but importantly long term and year over year.
Utilize various tools, techniques to diagnose, analyze and improve business processes.
Provide teaching and coaching to effectively transfer Lean skills into the organization for the development of Lean Leaders.
Manage teams to mitigate risk, allocate resources, and drive on time completion of initiatives.
Build trust and develop new relationships with internal and external clients to effectively collaborate and achieve successful outcomes at a regional/global.
Proactively recognize and mitigating barriers to cross-functional initiatives and acting as an intermediary across divisional, geographical, and cultural boundaries.
Proactively work to develop and demonstrate a culture of continuous improvement and challenge the status quo.
Mentor others on effective communication and active listening techniques to fuller understand client/customer needs and expectations.
Lead value deep process analysis, process observation and capacity analysis through value stream mapping to measure stagnation of inventory and information, waste, non-value added and losses identification and can lead kaizen to increase capacity and improve process performance.
Apply DMAIC methodology and statistical analysis to solve complex problems with multiple independent variables.
What skills you will need:
In order to excel in this role, you will more than likely have:
Bachelor’s Degree in a related field.
Experience analyzing complex end-to-end supply chains and driving process improvement
Hands-on application of Lean tools and techniques: standardized work, scientific problem solving, value stream mapping, mistake proofing, SMED, 5S-Visual Factory
Experience applying consultative skills: ability to influence decision making, ability to interact with all levels of the business (senior leaders to shop floor working teams), project management skills (demonstrated experience in managing large teams), solid business acumen, proven team building skills, exceptionally good listening skills, results oriented, strong analytical skills, and prior process improvement experience.
Coaching, Teaching, and driving a High-Performance Organization. Proven experience in coaching and teaching others to think, behave and apply lean methods and tools. Experience enabling and leveraging diverse perspectives, talents, etc. to achieve business outcomes.
Extensive Lean application experience, deep understanding and successful application of TPS.
Excellent skills using IT applications to organize and analyze date (MS-Access, MS-Excel, Minitab).
Experience in operations management, manufacturing, or related disciplines.
