Continuous Improvement Manager

Tenneco•Burlington, IA

About The Position

The Continuous Improvement Manager leads Lean and continuous improvement process implementation in alignment with P3 Operating System, facilitates improvement workshops, is actively involved in the development of the plant productivity improvement plan, implement VSS initiative (Value Stream Simplification) and is a key player to support Return on Sales and Divisional Cash Flow improvement. The Continuous Improvement Manager actively cooperates with Engineering teams to ensure “state of the art” technical improvement in the plant and ensure best practices implementation across similar product lines.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, quality or similar specialized field
Experience of 5+ years (ideally) in Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering.
Successful candidates must have a strong manufacturing background, combined with an aptitude for training and leadership.
Must have excellent interpersonal skills and have the ability to work in a team environment with little guidance.
Drug Screen and Background check required.

Nice To Haves

Previous experience in a Lean environment (or ideally in Lean implementation) is a significant plus.

Responsibilities

Define, drive and execute plant CI strategy that includes the development and execution of a roadmap of implementation of the P3 Operating System, in cooperation with plant management team
Coordinate and Lead Lean implementation within the plant: both technical and managerial aspects.
Contribute to Plant performance improvement by promoting the use of Lean tools and techniques, aligned with P3 Operating System. Organize / facilitate Lean events / workshops.
Coordinate the creation of the yearly Plant Productivity Improvement plan. This includes yearly plant productivity target setting, in alignment with plant management team and regional leadership.
Identify, prioritize and drive / support the identification & implementation of CI initiatives across entire plant (not only production areas) that provide the highest impact on financial results, involving plant controller and group controller
Ensure that productivity improvement projects are defined with clear targets, roles and responsibilities
Track the activities on a regular basis (frequency to be defined based on Plant priorities).
Report the progress on regular basis to the plant management team and to upper management (regional leadership)
Promote a continuous improvement culture. Facilitate regular Kaizen events.
Serve as a change agent with the plant, continually challenge conventional thinking, drive accountability, promote the use of Lean Management tools (i.e.: daily routines, Gemba walks, tiered meetings, layered process audits, TPM, …), in alignment with P3 Operating System.
Support all departments to achieve their goals regarding productivity improvement by providing appropriate tools and corresponding training.
Partner/Support the Value Stream Managers (Production Managers), Supervisors and support functions managers on improvement and problem-solving activities (5 Whys, Ishikawa diagram, …) or Six Sigma tools if needed.
Ensure best practices sharing and implementation in the plant / in the region and within entire PT.
In cooperation with finance, ensure that actual and forecasted savings reported are accurate
Ensure that actual monthly savings of month are reported per reporting timing.
Initiate change processes and drive implementation with plant management team
Provides training of and support of the P3x organization including development of Standardized Work, Development of production reporting, development and use of OAE and downtime management, and development of an effective Tier meeting structure.