Director, Operational Excellence & Advanced Engineering (RE925)

Spartech•Maryland Heights, MO

11h

About The Position

The Director of Operational Excellence and Advanced Engineering leads enterprise-wide manufacturing improvement and technical capability across Spartech. The role owns strategies, standards, and deployment systems for Lean, continuous improvement, performance management, automation, process engineering, and asset reliability. It is also accountable for delivering advanced engineering solutions that improve equipment uptime, process control, capital efficiency, and error-proofing beyond incremental Lean gains. Reporting to the COO, this leader partners with plant management to improve safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, and equipment effectiveness while developing a sustainable culture of operational discipline. The role develops and executes a multi-site Operational Excellence roadmap, establishes common operating standards and performance measures, and builds Lean and Six Sigma capability through training, coaching, project governance, and benefits verification. It leads manufacturing automation, tooling, equipment upgrades, process engineering, maintenance and reliability standards, and Total Productive Maintenance. The position also supports capital planning and execution, new product introductions, process transfers, troubleshooting, and adoption of proven manufacturing technologies. Spartech is headquartered in Maryland Heights, Missouri, and has more than a dozen locations throughout the United States. The company offers competitive salary, incentives, and benefit programs, with most benefits starting on day one.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
10 or more years of progressive manufacturing, engineering, or operational excellence experience, including leadership in a multi-site environment.
Demonstrated success delivering step-change results through Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, standardization, and advanced engineering solutions.
Hands-on leadership experience in automation and tooling, maintenance and reliability, and process engineering, including elevated process monitoring and statistical control.
Demonstrated ability to improve capital efficiency and asset utilization, including evaluating and delivering investments that increase returns on new and existing assets.
Experience applying structured problem solving and deliberate error-proofing to sustain operational gains.
Strong financial, analytical, communication, change management, and cross-functional leadership skills.

Nice To Haves

Advanced technical or business degree.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Experience with plastics processing, extrusion, thermoforming, or related manufacturing.
Experience implementing TPM, CMMS, manufacturing analytics, and multi-site engineering programs.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute a multi-site Operational Excellence roadmap incorporating Lean deployment, continuous improvement, Kaizen, value stream mapping, and waste reduction.
Institutionalize DMAIC, root-cause problem solving, and error-proofing, and coach teams to deliver measurable, sustained improvements.
Identify, validate, document, and migrate manufacturing best practices across sites while balancing enterprise standards with site-specific requirements.
Establish common operational KPIs and definitions for safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, scrap, downtime, and OEE.
Deploy standard work, visual factory management, tiered daily management, performance dashboards, escalation routines, and leader standard work.
Build Lean and Six Sigma capability through training, coaching, project governance, and benefits verification.
Lead strategy for manufacturing automation, tooling, equipment upgrades, and technical standards, prioritizing projects based on safety, business value, ROI, and risk.
Provide functional leadership for process engineering, including monitoring process input variables, statistical process control, process capability, throughput, material utilization, and cycle-time reduction.
Establish enterprise maintenance and reliability standards to improve facility and equipment uptime, including preventive and predictive maintenance, CMMS discipline, spare parts practices, and failure analysis.
Deploy Total Productive Maintenance, including autonomous maintenance, planned maintenance, focused improvement, and systematic OEE loss elimination.
Improve capital efficiency and asset utilization by ensuring new investments and existing assets deliver higher returns through better technical design, monitoring, and reliability.
Partner with plants on equipment specifications, capital justification, installation, commissioning, validation, and operational handoff.
Support new product introductions, process transfers, troubleshooting, and scalable adoption of proven manufacturing technologies, using error-proofing to sustain gains.