Manufacturing Excellence Leader

Trelleborg•Litchfield, MN

About The Position

The Manufacturing Excellence Leader leads, deploys, and sustains Manufacturing Excellence (ME) at the site level in alignment with the TMS Management System, driving a strong culture of Operational Excellence. As a key member of the Site Leadership Team, this role is the primary driver of Lean-based continuous improvement across safety, quality, delivery, cost, and engagement. The role translates enterprise and site strategies into actionable improvement priorities, builds local Lean and problem-solving capability, and delivers measurable, sustainable results. The Manufacturing Excellence Leader works closely with the global Operational Excellence team to maintain alignment, share best practices, and implement new Lean concepts, while owning end‑to‑end execution at the facility as both a hands-on practitioner and coach to leaders and teams.

Requirements

Lean principles
Structured problem solving
Lean tools
PDCA
A3
Root cause analysis
Data-based decision making
ISO 9001 / ISO 13485 compliance

Responsibilities

Identify, prioritize and facilitate improvement initiatives that deliver measureable improvements in Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Engagement.
Facilitate and/or coach Kaizen events, value stream mapping, problem solving efforrts to identify and eliminate waste and improve process capability.
Work across sites to support critical improvement initiatives as needed.
Serve as a coach and change leader, reinfrorcing Lean thinking, accountability, and continuous improvement behaviors at all levels of the site.
Challenge traditional thinking and remove barriers that prevent sustainable improvement.
Build internal capability by training and developing leaders, project owners, and process champions in Lean principles, structured problem solving and Lean tools.
Act as ambassador for site Daily Management/Performance Dailogue systems.
Partner with site leadership to translate business strategy into clear improvement priorities and measurable objectives.
Support departments in defining leading and lagging indicators, aligning local metrics to enterprise KPIs.
Ensure improvement activity and results are tracked, communicated, and sustained.
Assist departments in determining relevant ME metrics for their area that align with corporate metrics & goals.
Assist departments in planning improvement projects for their area that align to the corporate ME metrics & goals.
Assist departments in establishing and maintaining a system to capture, prioritize, and implement improvement ideas.
Support and build a structured problem solving based culture utilizing PDCA, A3, root cause analysis, and data-based decision making.
Collect, curate, and utilize data to improve the ME program.
Ensure learning from improvement efforts is standardized and shared across the site.
Act as the site liaison to the global TMS ME organization, ensuring alignment with standards, tools, and expectations.
Collaborate cross-functionally with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Finance, Supply Chain, IT and EHS to enable improvement success.
Ensure Manufacturing Excellence practices support compliance with applicable regulatory and quality system requirements (ISO 9001 / ISO 13485).