Reports to: Director of Operations

Reply to: Steven Morgan <steven.morgan@nhbco.com>

PURPOSE STATEMENT

The Manager, Continuous Improvement will identify and manage process improvements that enhance customer experience and deliver improved operational standardization, efficiency, and effectiveness in line with divisional objectives. This role will work collaboratively with various groups to identify process improvement areas, understand process requirements, propose actions for change, evaluate the cost benefit of potential improvements and drive the execution of the opportunities.

Key Responsibilities:

Define, track and report performance metrics and KPI target achievement across multiple sites performance improvement initiatives

• Work closely with the Project Nehemiah team and site leaders to develop, implement, and adjust dashboards to track site performance (KPIs, ops and people metrics), and savings (as applicable) tied to initiatives or pilot tests
• Develop tier dashboards that summarize multiple processes, metrics, and KPI’s from cross functional teams
• Escalate any impact detractors / potential roadblocks to results delivery to NHBCO leads and executives as appropriate
• Propose KPI’s and metrics for mapped processes to management

Coach team members and instill a continuous improvement mindset; facilitate and lead root-cause problem solving sessions for recurring issues

• Coach / train / re-train site leaders and supervisors on root-cause problem solving techniques including PDCA, DMAIC, 5 Whys, Fishbone Diagram, etc.
• Utilize DMAIC strategy to identify areas within processes to measure and improve team performance
• Leads cross-functional project teams to implement change and drive continuous improvement
• Ensure ongoing use of using lean manufacturing tools, systems, and methodologies across sites; cascading of tools from managers to frontlines (complete and reinforce learnings from Ops Catalyst trainings)
• Facilitates an environment that fosters and supports continuous improvement and demonstrates a sense of urgency that results in a commitment to quality results

Act as performance liaison between NHBCO Operations leaders (site ops managers, supervisors, plant leads) and the executive team

• Collect baseline data at or before the start of any new initiative; conduct financial / quantitative analysis to estimate savings opportunity
• Leverage Syspro (ERP) data and historical KPI / metric trends to report on improvements or opportunity areas to initiative champions and executives
• Coordinates with process owners, managers, and subject matter experts to develop and maintain process documentation as part of a define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) approach.
• Work with management to develop data-driven improvement plans to processes, tools, or team organization

Propose and implement “Kaizens” for specific assets / line areas / functions that would benefit from enhancements:

• Drive insights from historical KPIs / cost and performance data; facilitate CI opportunity identification and prioritization discussions with NHBCO leaders
• Create and maintain evolving pipeline of initiatives that could drive cost savings, ops metrics improvement, etc. across sites
• Identifies process inefficiencies, develops, and presents cost benefit analyses to senior management and collaborates with appropriate resources to implement improvements
• Other duties as required or assigned

Skills Requirement:

Professional

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (Master’s, PhD) and Engineering preferred
• 5-7+ years of prior manufacturing / process engineering / continuous improvement experience required; prior work in food industry preferred
• Manufacturing / CI Expertise: Six sigma Green / Black belt qualification a plus

Technical

• Comprehensive knowledge of and expertise in manufacturing and lean principles (e.g., Kaizen, 5 Why, 5S, PDCA, DMAIC); operations management
• Strong quantitative skills and comfort with data manipulation (Excel, Tableau)
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills with the ability to listen and communicate effectively with all levels within the organization.

Behavioral

• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional stakeholders
• Willingness to engage in impromptu and structured problem-solving sessions
• Being a collaborative and principled team player
• Exhibits positive leadership at a role model level
• Ability to operate with a strategic focus
• Highly effective interpersonal skills with a proven ability to build and maintain solid relationships at all levels throughout the organization and utilize these relationships to achieve successful integrations
• Ability to learn, analyze situations and resolve issues with minimal assistance and supervision

Key Organizational Relationships:

• NHBCO Executive Leadership
• Plant Managers across sites
• Initiative / Workstream Champions (Director, Manager level colleagues)
• Site Ops managers and supervisors; frontline manufacturing team members
• As needed: Supply Chain, Finance, Quality, Maintenance, Engineering, Planning, HR