Program Manager - Process Development & Improvement

9039 Fluid Power Sales LLC•Village of Baldwinsville, NY

About The Position

The Process Improvement Lead is responsible for how work moves through Applied Fluid Power's system, warehouse, and production floor, from order receipt to shipment, and for standardizing, measuring, and sustaining those processes across AFP subsidiaries. The role combines Lean practice with daily operations and owns value stream design, labor productivity, and the pilot-to-standard process that embeds successful improvements into site operations. It is a foundational role in AFP's operational excellence build-out, with accountability for ensuring improvements remain effective after the improvement team leaves.

Requirements

High school diploma or equivalent required.
5+ years of experience with Lean implementation and standard work.
Strong understanding of distribution, manufacturing, or industrial business processes, such as order management, procurement, inventory, and service.
Demonstrated ability to design and document business processes that produce clean, structured data.
Experience working across multiple business units or subsidiaries with varying levels of process maturity.
Comfort operating in ambiguity, spending significant time on the floor, and working without a large team beneath you.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's degree preferred.
Experience benchmarking labor productivity or throughput across multiple sites.
Familiarity with warehouse or distribution operations in a fluid power, industrial distribution, or manufacturing environment.
Prior experience leading Lean pilots through enterprise-wide rollout.

Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end Value Stream Mapping of the order-to-ship process across representative distribution operations.
Design and document standard order-to-ship processes, defining flow, handoffs, controls, and performance expectations.
Identify waste, delay, and variability in the value stream and recommend practical improvements.
Balance customer service, throughput, labor efficiency, and scalability in process designs.
Apply warehouse and production Lean tools, including 5S, standard work, visual management, and layout optimization.
Build labor productivity models and establish baseline performance by function, including receiving, picking, manufacturing, assembly, packing, and shipping.
Benchmark performance across sites to identify opportunity gaps and best practices.
Reduce order cycle time and labor cost per order through process redesign and constraint removal.
Use throughput and constraint analysis to focus improvement efforts on high-impact opportunities.
Establish repeatable baselines for cycle time, productivity, utilization, and throughput; ensure metrics are clearly defined, consistently calculated, and understood by operations.
Enable fact-based problem solving and partner with local leaders to turn data into actionable improvements.
Lead improvement pilots in representative subsidiaries to validate process designs and assumptions.
Incorporate operator and supervisor feedback into revised standards and ensure pilots demonstrate measurable improvements before broader rollout.
Document lessons learned to accelerate enterprise adoption.
Hand off sustainable standards to local operations with clear ownership and accountability.
Train supervisors and frontline teams on new processes and performance expectations.
Embed improvements into daily management routines and verify gains are sustained after handoff.
Communicate and collaborate with operations, supply chain, engineering, and leadership teams.
Facilitate structured improvement workshops and working sessions with clear purpose and outcomes.
Translate Lean concepts into practical, operator-level understanding.
Escalate risks, constraints, or resistance early and propose countermeasures.
Adhere to company policies, with particular focus on safety, quality, and operational discipline.