Manager, Operational Excellence & Industrial Engineering

Nuts.com • Cranford, NJ

6d • $130,000 - $145,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Manager of Operational Excellence & Industrial Engineering will be a hands-on, high-impact operator responsible for improving how work gets done across our operations network. This person will lead continuous improvement, industrial engineering, and network efficiency initiatives that improve productivity (labor margin), quality, and customer experience. They will also help us build the plant of the future by identifying where automation, robotics, data, and process technology can improve how our operations work today while shaping the long-term technology roadmap for scalable growth. This role is ideal for someone who is analytical, practical, self-motivated, and comfortable moving between data, the production floor, and executive-level conversations. We are looking for someone who can identify problems, build the business case, align stakeholders, and then roll up their sleeves to execute. The right candidate will not just report on performance; they will improve it. They will lead projects across process design, labor standards, packaging optimization, network design, Perfect Order Score improvement, root cause analysis, SMED, New Product Innovation support, and other ad hoc special operations projects. This person will partner closely with Operations, Data, Engineering, FSQA, and cross-functional leaders to drive measurable results across the business. This role reports to the Director of Operations.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Supply Chain, or a related field.
• 5-8+ years of progressive experience in operations, manufacturing, industrial engineering, supply chain, operational excellence, or continuous improvement.
• Experience in food, CPG, e-commerce fulfillment, manufacturing, or another high-volume operational environment strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to improve labor productivity, cost to produce, yield, quality, and service metrics.
• Strong industrial engineering toolkit, including time studies, labor standards, process mapping, line balancing, job design, job combination, layout optimization, and standard work.
• Experience leading RCA, SMED, Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, or similar continuous improvement initiatives.
• Ability to build financial models, quantify ROI, assess labor and cost impacts, and make data-backed recommendations.
• Experience with operational costing, product costing, labor modeling, or production cost analysis.
• Strong analytical skills and advanced Excel capability.
• Experience building dashboards and reporting tools in Looker, Tableau, Power BI, or similar platforms.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain complex operational and financial topics clearly to frontline teams, peers, and senior leaders.
• Ability to influence without authority and drive accountability across cross-functional teams.
• Hands-on leadership style with a strong bias for action.
• High ownership mentality; able to operate with ambiguity, prioritize effectively, and move work forward without waiting for perfect direction.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree or MBA is a plus.
• Familiarity with GMP, HACCP, FSMA, OSHA, and food safety standards preferred.
• Green Belt or Black Belt certification preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own Network Efficiency and Operational Performance: Lead initiatives that improve network-wide efficiency, cost structure, and operational execution across production, fulfillment, packaging, receiving, inventory, and related workflows.
• Analyze and improve cost to produce, labor margin, productivity, throughput, yield, waste, and operational cost drivers across the network.
• Identify opportunities to reduce labor cost per unit, improve units per labor hour, and increase overall operating leverage.
• Build and maintain clear views of operating performance across sites, departments, lines, shifts, and processes.
• Partner with Operations leadership to prioritize the highest-impact opportunities and translate them into executable projects.
• Support network design decisions, including process flow, labor model, equipment utilization, packaging flow, space constraints, and operational scalability.
• Develop financial models and business cases that quantify expected savings, ROI, payback, and post-implementation impact.
• Lead or co-lead weekly meetings focused on operating costs, productivity, labor performance, Perfect Order Score, project progress, and improvement priorities.
• Drive Process and Industrial Engineering: Bring a practical industrial engineering mindset to how we design, measure, and improve work.
• Conduct time studies, labor analyses, workflow observations, and process mapping to identify improvement opportunities.
• Develop and refine labor standards, staffing assumptions, job designs, and productivity expectations.
• Identify opportunities for job combination, line balancing, layout improvement, work simplification, and standard work.
• Improve process flow across receiving, roasting, filling, packaging, fulfillment, inventory, and other operational areas.
• Use Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, RCA, SMED, and other continuous improvement methods to solve problems and reduce operational friction.
• Partner with frontline operators and supervisors to test, validate, and sustain process improvements.
• Partner with cross-functional teams on product costing, process costing, packaging assumptions, labor assumptions, and operational feasibility.
• Support New Product Innovation and special operations projects by helping define process requirements, labor needs, packaging flow, production readiness, and post-launch improvements.
• Lead RCA, SMED, and Continuous Improvement Initiatives: Be the point person for structured problem-solving and sustained improvement.
• Lead root cause analysis for recurring operational issues, missed KPIs, quality defects, labor variance, service misses, and process breakdowns.
• Lead SMED and changeover-reduction initiatives to improve line availability, reduce downtime, increasing flexibility and OEE.
• Facilitate Kaizen events and continuous improvement workshops with operators, supervisors, managers, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Build a pipeline of near-term and long-term improvement projects tied to measurable business impact.
• Ensure improvement actions are implemented, measured, sustained, and embedded into standard work.
• Help build a culture where teams use data, facts, and direct observation to solve problems.
• Build Metrics, Dashboards, and Decision Tools: Create visibility into the metrics that matter and turn data into decisions.
• Build, maintain, and improve dashboards in Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Excel, or similar tools.
• Create a single source of truth for key operational metrics, including labor efficiency, cost, yield, and Perfect Order Score.
• Partner with the Data team to improve data accuracy, metric definitions, reporting structure, and operational decision-making tools.
• Conduct ad hoc analyses using data from multiple systems and translate findings into practical recommendations.
• Make performance visible and understandable for frontline teams, managers, and executives.
• Stay Close to the Floor: This is not a desk-only role. The person in this seat must be competitive and highly comfortable spending time in the operation, observing work, partnering with teams, and helping solve problems in real time.
• Spend significant time on the floor understanding product flow, labor flow, system usage, constraints, and process variation.
• Partner directly with operators, leads, supervisors, managers, and cross-functional teams.
• Support day-to-day operations when needed, especially during demand spikes, launches, process changes, or operational challenges.
• Bring a practical, get-it-done mindset to problem-solving.
• Balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution.

Benefits

• A high-growth and rewarding role in a foundationally strong and rapidly evolving business
• Annual Salary Range: $130,000 - $145,000 plus annual bonus
• Excellent benefits including a 401K Match
• Paid Maternity, Adoption and Paternity leave
• And all the Nuts.com snacks your heart desires + a 40% employee discount

What This Job Offers

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