Your Opportunity as the Operations Excellence and Continuous Improvement Manager

The Operations Excellence and Continuous Improvement Manager is responsible for coaching site pillar leaders and the entire plant organization towards the successful utilization of a High-Performance Organization (HPO), continuous improvement, and their tools and practices. These tools ensure the organization is designed to deliver the site plan through loss elimination and the engagement of all employees. The Operations Excellence and Continuous Improvement Manager drives consistent and effective use of pillar tools, effective communication across teams, and reapplication of company best practices and standards.

Location: Topeka, KS manufacturing plant

Work Arrangements: 100% on-site

• Willingness to work off shift (including days, weekends, and/or holidays) and flow to the work as needed
• Travel - anticipate less than 10%

Reports to: Director, Operations

In this role you will:

• Assist site leadership team in developing High-Performance Organization (HPO) systems and behaviors during planning, startup, and operation of new plant
• Coach plant leadership and pillars to build high performance capability at all levels of the organization
  • Help to ensure reliability systems are developed to be as robust as safety and quality systems
  • Ensure standardized pillar requirements are met across all pillars
  • Ensure rapid lead line reapplication across the site
• Ensure site adherence to master planning cadence
  • Ensure completion and / or review of site loss analysis action plan
  • Ensure completion of organization performance modeling or health assessment
  • Lead internal and external HPO phase assessment for the site
  • Coach pillar leaders and department managers to build and execute plans that connects to site plan
  • Establish a glide path for HPO phase completion
• Support the results management process at all levels of the organization
  • Provide coaching on how to determine appropriate metric and targets at all levels of the organization
  • Ensure result updates are clearly displayed throughout the plant
  • Provide coaching to pillar leads and department managers on the gap analysis process and triggers for response
  • Ensure data driven decision making occurs at all levels of the organization

The Right Place for You

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our , and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.

What we are looking for:

Minimum Requirements:

• A Bachelor's degree
• Manufacturing operational experience
• Prior success in improving and sustaining results
• Experience in training, facilitation, and leading groups
• Ability to lead by influencing others
• Ability to work with people at all levels of the organization

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role:

• An Engineering degree
• Operations experience using HPO tools to deliver business results
• Continued education or certifications in Continuous Improvement (six sigma, lean manufacturing, black belt)

Learn more about working at Smucker:

#LI-NO1