Director of Operational Excellence

Fortune Brands•Deerfield, IL

11h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Operational Excellence is the enterprise leader responsible for advancing Lean and Operational Excellence across FBIN’s manufacturing and distribution network. This role blends enterprise strategy with hands‑on, on‑site deployment to deliver sustained improvements in safety, quality, delivery, cost, and asset reliability.

Requirements

Bachelors degree required
Minimum of 7 years of hands‑on Lean / CI experience.
Strong background in Lean Manufacturing, TPM, Daily Management, and Kaizen required.
Demonstrated leadership experience managing large‑scale manufacturing operations or multiple production sites.
Strong project management skills with ability to plan tasks, assign and manage resources, remove barriers, manage change, resolve conflict, build consensus, and motivate team members.
Strong influence, leadership, and change management skills.
Experience with dashboards and analytics tools (Excel, Power BI, Tableau, or similar).
Ability to travel up to 30-50%.

Nice To Haves

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead enterprise Lean and Operational Excellence strategy, including roadmap development and governance, to drive consistent performance improvement across manufacturing and distribution.
Deploy and scale the Enterprise Operating System across sites with varying maturity levels, aligning execution to business priorities.
Provide hands‑on leadership at key Lean milestones, including value stream mapping, Kaizen events, and site transformation efforts.
Partner with Plant Managers and site leaders to improve safety, quality, delivery, cost, and asset reliability while building sustainable CI capability.
Establish and standardize OpEx metrics and operating rhythms to track progress, drive accountability, and sustain results.
Present OpEx progress, transformation roadmaps, and capital plans to executive leadership.
Leverage data and performance insights to prioritize improvements and support fact‑based decision making.