Site Focused Improvement Specialist

Mars • North Sioux City, SD

13d • Onsite

About The Position

The Site Focused Improvement Specialist is responsible for driving structured loss elimination and sustainable performance improvement across the manufacturing site. This role focuses on identifying operational losses, solving root causes, and implementing practical improvements that reduce waste, improve quality, increase throughput, and strengthen cost performance. This position partners closely with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Maintenance, Planning, Continuous Improvement, and Industrial Engineering teams to turn data and floor observations into measurable improvement actions.

Requirements

• 2 to 3+ years of experience in manufacturing, operations, continuous improvement, quality, engineering, maintenance, production support, or industrial engineering.
• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, production systems, and performance loss drivers.
• Experience using structured problem-solving tools such as RCA, DMAIC, 5 Why, fishbone, A3, or similar methodologies.
• Ability to collect, analyze, and translate operational data into practical improvement actions.
• Working knowledge of manufacturing KPIs such as waste, scrap, downtime, throughput, efficiency, quality losses, labor productivity, schedule adherence, or equipment performance.
• Strong communication, facilitation, and collaboration skills across hourly associates, supervisors, managers, and support functions.
• Comfortable spending time on the production floor across shifts to understand problems at the source.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple improvement actions and follow through to completion.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in food, beverage, consumer products, aerospace, automotive, pharmaceutical, packaging, logistics, or regulated manufacturing environments.
• Bachelor's degree within Supply Chain function.
• Green Belt, Black Belt, Lean, TPM, Six Sigma, or equivalent continuous improvement certification.
• Experience with SPC, production reporting systems, loss trees, waste reporting, value stream mapping, or daily management systems.
• Experience supporting continuous improvement, operational excellence, focused improvement, TPM, or manufacturing excellence programs.
• Strong ability to influence laterally in a relationship-based team environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support focused improvement initiatives to reduce waste, quality losses, downtime, production inefficiencies, and other operational cost drivers.
• Use structured problem-solving tools such as RCA, DMAIC, 5 Why, fishbone, Pareto analysis, A3, value stream mapping, and floor observations to identify and eliminate root causes.
• Partner with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Maintenance, Planning, Continuous Improvement, and Industrial Engineering teams to convert identified losses into clear action plans and measurable improvement projects.
• Analyze production data, waste reports, downtime trends, quality losses, process performance, and other operational KPIs to identify recurring issues and improvement opportunities.
• Support site performance improvement by making losses visible, prioritizing high-impact opportunities, and driving actions to completion.
• Facilitate cross-functional problem-solving sessions and ensure actions are assigned, tracked, verified, and sustained.
• Work directly with line teams, supervisors, and area owners to validate problems at the source and build ownership for improvement actions.
• Help develop and sustain standards, routines, controls, and best practices that prevent recurrence of losses.
• Coach associates and leaders on basic problem-solving methods and continuous improvement routines.
• Support continuous improvement deployment by connecting improvement activities to site priorities, operating standards, and performance management routines.
• Spend significant time on the manufacturing floor observing processes, validating data, engaging teams, and confirming countermeasure effectiveness.
• Collaborate with local and regional Continuous Improvement / Industrial Engineering networks to share best practices and support improvement activities when needed.
• Travel up to 25% to participate in training, benchmarking, and support activities across the network.

Benefits

• company bonus
• Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: High school or GED