Vice President, Operational Excellence

IRC Trane Technologies Company•Davidson, NC

9h•Hybrid

About The Position

As a world leader in creating comfortable, sustainable, and efficient climate solutions for buildings, homes and transportation, it's our responsibility to put the planet first. Trane Technologies, through its businesses including Trane® and Thermo King, views sustainability as its core business. This role is critical to Trane Technologies' GISC transformation, serving as an enabler of growth, productivity, and sustainability goals. The VP of Operational Excellence will own the enterprise Business Operating System (BOS), lead the global lean and continuous improvement strategy, and establish capabilities, standards, and operating rhythms to enhance performance across all regions, SBUs, and plants. The objective is to deliver measurable business results through standardized processes, lean problem-solving, waste elimination, and digital enablement, preparing operations for future growth.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive leadership in manufacturing, operational excellence, Lean, or industrial operations.
Demonstrated success building and scaling Lean operating systems in global, multi-plant industrial environments with complex supply chains.
Deep expertise in lean systems, value stream transformation, daily management, flow design, and problem solving.
Experience with enabling automation, digital performance tools, and Industry 4.0 concepts within Lean systems strongly preferred.
Proven leadership in complex, global, matrixed environments.
Bachelor’s degree required; Engineering or technical field preferred.
Advanced degree or Operational Excellence certification (e.g., Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Master) strongly valued.
Ability to travel globally up to 25–30%.

Nice To Haves

Engineering or technical field preferred for Bachelor's degree.
Advanced degree or Operational Excellence certification (e.g., Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Master) strongly valued.

Responsibilities

Define, govern, and advance the Business Operating System (BOS) and operational excellence capabilities across Trane Technologies’ Global Integrated Supply Chain.
Set global standards for lean, daily management, problem solving, flow, productivity, and operational performance management.
Define performance standards, drive measurable productivity improvement, and create an integrated roadmap for cost, quality, delivery, and safety outcomes.
Partner with Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain Planning, Logistics, Procurement, Sustainability, and Digitization to embed operational excellence throughout the value chain.
Deliver year-over-year productivity gains, support structural COGS improvement, build global lean capability, accelerate automation and digital tools, and enable world-class performance in factories and SBUs.
Build Global Lean and Operational Excellence Capability by defining and executing the enterprise strategy aligned to COGS, growth, and efficiency objectives.
Champion a culture of continuous improvement, problem-solving, and operational accountability.
Strengthen leadership behaviors to drive reliability, discipline, and data-driven decision making.
Establish global standards for value stream mapping, problem solving, waste elimination, flow, and standard work.
Drive Measurable Productivity & COGS Improvement through lean methods, automation, line balancing, and waste reduction.
Partner with SBUs and plant leaders to improve OEE, labor productivity, flow, bottleneck elimination, and reduce waste, rework, and variability.
Provide targeted Operational Excellence support for enterprise-level initiatives, capacity expansions, automation deployments, and footprint optimization.
Provide enterprise visibility into productivity performance, root causes, and improvement plans.
Improve Plant Stability, Flow, and Operational Discipline by leading enterprise initiatives to improve flow, takt alignment, standard work adherence, and cycle-time stability.
Drive consistency in production system execution across SBUs and plants.
Strengthen stability and adherence to standard work to reduce variability and improve throughput.
Enable Digital Lean, Automation and Advanced Productivity Tools by partnering with the Supply Chain Digitization team to deploy dashboards, digital work instructions, computer vision, and IoT-based loss analysis.
Collaborate with Manufacturing Engineering to align automation with standard work and flow design.
Ensure the BOS integrates seamlessly with automation technologies and digital tools.
Lead the Global Business Operating System (BOS) by owning and governing the enterprise BOS architecture, standards, tools, leader routines, and performance management rhythm.
Define and deploy common processes, visual management, daily management systems, and performance rhythms.
Maintain governance and clarity on roles, expectations, and leadership behaviors across SBUs, plants, and functions.
Ensure operational excellence principles are embedded in cross-functional processes, including new product development and supplier collaboration.
Drive alignment across the global Operational Excellence network for consistency, shared learning, and accelerated scaling of best practices.
Establish a culture of accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement.
Build a global, high performing enterprise Operational Excellence organization with a credible brand and clear roles across regions, SBUs, and plants.

Benefits

Health insurance
Holistic wellness programs with generous incentives
Fertility coverage
Adoption/surrogacy assistance
401K match up to 6%, plus an additional 2% core contribution (up to 8% company contribution)
15 vacation days
9 paid holidays
3 floating holidays
Sick leave
Additional options to support volunteer and parental leave
Educational and training opportunities through company programs
Tuition assistance
Student debt support