Operational Excellence Leader: NASD

Agilent Technologies•Durham, NC

2d•$146,640 - $274,950•Remote

About The Position

Agilent’s Nucleic Acid Solutions Division (NASD), part of the Advanced Therapeutics Division (ATD), manufactures therapeutic oligonucleotides at clinical-to-commercial scale from facilities in Frederick and Boulder, Colorado. This posting is for the NASD assignment within ATD’s Operational Excellence function. Agilent’s Operational Excellence function builds and embeds the production system on the manufacturing floor. The function exists to convert operational performance into capacity the divisions can sell. The Operational Excellence Lead owns this build across the full value stream, from fermentation through downstream recovery and purification to release-readiness and leads through depth of expertise with no direct reports. Success depends on influence through the ATD OEX governance model: site leadership owns operating results, while this role owns method, cadence, capability build, and countermeasure discipline. This role works alongside site leadership, not above it.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in a life science, chemical, engineering or biochemical engineering, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
10+ years in a GMP-regulated manufacturing environment with direct, with 8+ years of Lean hands-on accountability for process performance across the Make value stream. Real depth in chemical or pharmaceutical synthesis and GMP manufacturing
Demonstrated, hands-on experience deploying and sustaining a production or business operating system in a line role, whether the Toyota Production System, Lean, or the Danaher Business System (DBS), including strategy deployment, tiered daily management, kaizen, standard work, visual management, and structured problem-solving
A track record of delivering measurable, sustained business results through transformation, across safety, quality, delivery, throughput, yield, cycle time, cost, or client performance
Deep command of structured problem-solving and root-cause methodology applied to real process problems, with the credibility to coach operators and influence senior leaders alike

Nice To Haves

10+ years of experience in Lean manufacturing in a complex or regulated manufacturing environment
Tech transfer, process validation, or new product introduction in a biologics or pharmaceutical manufacturing setting.
Certification in Lean, Six Sigma, or TPS, or status as a Danaher Business System Certified Practitioner or Advanced Certified Practitioner (CP / ACP). Certification is welcome but does not substitute for a demonstrated record of building a durable system.

Responsibilities

Own the production-system build across the full Make value stream at your assigned site or campaigns, from incoming materials through to release-readiness. Begin each new deployment with a structured rapid diagnostic that reads the current state of the production system, daily management, and floor culture through direct observation, operator interviews, and quantitative evidence, and translate the findings into a sequenced deployment roadmap agreed with site operations and quality leadership.
Build and sustain tiered daily management from Tier 1 through Tier 4, leader standard work, visual performance management, Safety, Quality, Delivery, and Cost (SQDC) boards, and clear KPI ownership at the line, with structured escalation that surfaces and counters abnormality the shift it occurs.
Own and run the kaizen funnel for your value stream: prioritize, charter, and lead kaizen events and workshops that close KPI gaps in synthesis yield and cycle-time stability, coupling and deprotection efficiency, downstream purification yield, right-first-time execution, changeover through SMED, and the manufacturing-to-quality handoff.
Translate site and business objectives into floor-level priorities through strategy deployment / Hoshin Kanri, with defined ownership, milestones, countermeasures, and benefits realization.
Connect operational performance to the outcomes the divisions care about: throughput and sellable capacity, on-time-in-full against client commitments, release cycle time, right-first-time, and the inventory, working capital, and cost that follow. Build and maintain a transformation scorecard as the single source of truth for KPI performance, value capture, and countermeasure tracking.
Use MES, electronic batch records, shop-floor data systems, and analytics where they exist to feed the daily management system and surface process abnormality in real time. Identify where digital and AI tools earn a place in daily work, treating them as enablers of the production system rather than a parallel initiative.
Lead and mentor structured problem-solving (A3 and PSP) at the Gemba on the real constraints across the value stream, driving teams through root-cause analysis rather than solving problems for them.
Lead value stream mapping across the batch lifecycle, including the transactional and quality flows where sellable capacity is most often lost, batch-record review, deviation handling, and client response, then install the daily management and standard work that level the work and shorten time to release. Partner with Quality to support the operating-system elements of the release maturity roadmap, from conventional finished-product testing toward more streamlined release models where the process knowledge, client alignment, and regulatory pathway support it; the analytical science, filings, and release strategy belong to Quality, while the process understanding, standard work, and flow architecture belong to OEX.
Apply the production system to tech transfer and new product introduction, compressing cycle times and building repeatable, scalable handoff processes so the operation can onboard the next molecule and the next client faster and with zero deviations at commercial scale.
Coach and develop supervisors, operators, and emerging practitioners in standard work, daily management, structured problem-solving, and Lean fundamentals, and build the next generation of certified practitioners on the floor.
Be the resident authority and method owner for the production-system standard at your site. Embed standardized ways of working, governance routines, and accountability mechanisms that deliver durable results beyond individual kaizen events, and transfer ownership to the site team so the system outlives your involvement.
Coordinate benchmarking and external best-practice analysis and rotate across the North American ATD footprint as deployment phases mature rather than anchoring to a single site. At each location, you build the production system in close partnership with Quality and Manufacturing leadership and transfer ownership to the site team. You are part of a dedicated team of CDMO and advanced therapeutics OEX practitioners within a permanent enterprise function with regional teams already deployed across Americas, EMEA, and APAC, sharing standard work, leading practices, and hard-won lessons across the practitioner community as the function scales.