Lean Manufacturing Engineer

Takeda • Los Angeles, CA

4d • $116,000 - $182,270

About The Position

The Lean Manufacturing Engineer supports Takeda’s Los Angeles production facility within the Plasma-Derived Therapies business unit. The role provides guidance and coaching in strategically important areas, optimizes processes, increases productivity, and supports the site’s growth strategy while helping ensure safety, product quality, and compliance. It focuses primarily on large-scale, automated, multistep batch processes with significant manual operations.

The incumbent analyzes processes and systems, makes improvement opportunities visible, and drives actions to realize and sustain improvements, particularly in production. The role interprets Takeda’s standard lean operating system and guides its application with a focus on value creation, collaborating with other sites and global support teams to improve operating-system standards. It also contributes to planning and executing production-capacity increases, with an emphasis on scalability and sustainability.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in science, engineering, or another related technical field.
• 6+ years of related experience.
• 5+ years of experience deploying and coaching Lean in a manufacturing or industrial engineering role.
• Proficiency in manufacturing-system analysis and statistical analysis.
• Strong negotiation, influencing, consultation, and facilitation skills.
• Structured, logical, critical, and analytical thinking.
• Confidence coaching, leading, and guiding others.
• Self-motivation and self-direction, with a demonstrated record of results.
• Leadership and mentoring skills, including the ability to lead and motivate teams toward business goals.
• Advanced digital and data skills, including visualization tools such as Excel, Power BI, or Qlik Sense; analytical tools such as Minitab, Python, or R Shiny; and exposure to cloud data systems.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and facilitation skills.
• Strong organizational and project-management capabilities, with knowledge of manufacturing processes and continuous-improvement approaches.
• Ability to work extended hours and various shifts as needed.

Nice To Haves

• Lean certification.
• Experience in the biotechnology or pharmaceutical industry.
• Experience in a process industry.
• Experience in an FDA-regulated environment, Good Manufacturing Practices, and ISO 9001.
• For supervisory positions, 1+ year of supervisory experience.

Responsibilities

• Use Lean, manufacturing engineering, and industrial engineering tools to advance site transformation objectives.
• Understand the strategic context, current state, and relevant systems to identify opportunities aligned with site strategy.
• Create analytical models and enhance existing models to generate actionable insights.
• Build organizational support and momentum for key initiatives.
• Lead and coach teams to implement change and develop Lean capabilities.
• Ensure improvement outcomes are achieved, visible, sustained, and integrated into daily operations.
• Collaborate with global, regional, and Operating Unit groups to bring leading practices to the site and share successful site practices.
• Enhance existing pull systems and replace push-based processes with flow and pull.
• Champion change and apply root-cause problem-solving and continuous-improvement methods.
• Integrate organizational change management into improvement initiatives.
• Research, test, and implement process improvements while maintaining safety, quality, and compliance with applicable regulations and standards.
• Help plan and execute the 2025 and 2027 production-capacity increases, focusing on scalability and sustainability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to address capacity-expansion and operational-excellence challenges.
• Train employees and work effectively with employees at all levels.

Benefits

• Takeda offers stimulating careers, encourages innovation, and strives for excellence.
• The company describes an inclusive, collaborative workplace focused on patient care and employee growth.
• Information about benefits is available through the company’s benefits link.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior