Continuous Improvement Team Leader

About the role

Reynolds Consumer Products is seeking a Continuous Improvement Team Leader at its Manufacturing Plant in Jacksonville, IL. This is a day shift position (8-hour shift). The Continuous Improvement Leader supports daily improvement execution within the plant by connecting floor-level issues to structured action. This role works closely with operators, supervisors, and the Plant CI Manager to identify losses, follow up on improvement actions, escalate blockers, and help sustain standards. This is a hands-on, floor-focused role designed to develop strong problem-solving capability while supporting plant priorities in Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, Productivity, and People. The CI Leader is not expected to solve every problem alone, but is expected to help make problems visible, support daily action, and build ownership at the department level.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a strong floor presence by observing the process, engaging operators, and capturing feedback on barriers impacting performance.
• Identify process deviations, standard work gaps, recurring issues, and improvement opportunities in extrusion, conversion, or assigned department areas.
• Support shift change and department DMS routines by helping identify top losses, KPI gaps, downtime, scrap, waste, line stops, throughput issues, and help chain misses.
• Ensure daily issues are made visible and connected to actions, owners, due dates, follow-up, and escalation when needed.
• Support implementation of A3, kaizen, 5S, RCA, SMED, BRC, savings projects, and department improvement actions through floor follow-up, action tracking, blocker escalation, and effectiveness checks.
• Help identify savings opportunities using 8-waste thinking, with focus on scrap reduction, downtime reduction, labor productivity, throughput improvement, line stops, standard work gaps, and overall waste reduction.
• Support savings projects by providing floor feedback, before/after evidence, action updates, and validation support to the Plant CI Manager.
• Support adherence to standard work, checklists, SOCs, visual controls, and process conditions at the point of use.
• Execute CI Leader Standard Work to identify daily gaps, follow up on actions, escalate blockers, capture wins, and support plant improvement priorities.
• Help sustain improvements by verifying that new standards, countermeasures, and best practices are being followed.
• Capture operator ideas, wins, and before/after improvements, and provide short daily updates to the Plant CI Manager to support coaching, visibility, and follow-up.

Requirements

• High school diploma or GED.
• 3+ years of manufacturing experience with demonstrated leadership responsibilities.
• Associate's degree in a related field preferred; high school diploma or equivalent combination of education, technical training, and relevant work experience will be considered.
• Prior manufacturing, continuous improvement, quality, maintenance, process, or production support experience.
• Strong computer skills, including Excel analysis with pivots, formulas, charts, filtering, sorting, and comparing performance trends.
• Ability to use data and floor observations together to identify recurring issues, process deviations, and improvement opportunities.
• Ability to understand plant performance drivers such as downtime, scrap, waste, line stops, throughput, quality, standard work, and process deviations.
• Strong communication, ownership, follow-through, teamwork, and willingness to learn CI tools and support daily improvement routines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with RedZone, Ignition, Power BI, SAP, or other manufacturing data/reporting systems.
• Familiarity with Lean tools, CI, DMS, 5S, standard work, 5 Why, A3, kaizen, RCA, SMED.
• Experience supporting improvement work tied to savings, scrap reduction, downtime reduction, waste reduction, throughput, quality, or labor productivity.

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

• Knowledge of manufacturing operations and standardized work principles.
• Ability to lead, coach, and develop employees.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities.
• Ability to prioritize work and coordinate multiple operational activities.
• Ability to build collaborative working relationships across functional teams.
• Commitment to safety, quality, and continuous improvement.

Competencies

• Directs Work – Organizes people and resources to consistently achieve operational objectives.
• Develops Talent – Builds individual capability through coaching, feedback, and ongoing development.
• Builds Effective Teams – Creates a collaborative environment focused on shared accountability and results.
• Decision Quality – Makes timely, sound decisions using available information and operational judgment.
• Drives Results – Maintains focus on achieving safety, quality, delivery, and productivity goals.
• Communicates Effectively – Shares information clearly and fosters open communication across all levels of the organization.

Pay

USD $29.80 - USD $29.80 /H