Lean Specialist

Responsibilities

• Lead the deployment of Lean Manufacturing principles across all U.S. facilities
• Drive a consistent operational excellence framework across plants
• Identify and prioritize high-impact improvement opportunities aligned with business objectives
• Facilitate Kaizen events and structured problem-solving initiatives (A3, DMAIC)
• Establish, document, and deploy standard work across critical operations
• Partner with site teams to ensure adherence and sustainability of standard processes
• Audit and continuously improve standard work to drive consistency and repeatability
• Train plant leadership and operators on standard work principles and execution
• Lead SMED initiatives to significantly reduce setup and changeover times
• Analyze current changeover processes and separate internal vs. external activities
• Implement best practices to improve equipment uptime, flexibility, and responsiveness
• Drive replication of successful SMED improvements across all facilities
• Develop and standardize key performance metrics (OEE, changeover time, scrap, throughput, lead time)
• Use data analytics to identify trends, gaps, and improvement opportunities
• Support sites in achieving measurable performance improvements
• Drive cross-site standardization of best practices and processes
• Support facility layout, flow improvements, and capacity optimization efforts
• Act as a liaison between corporate leadership and plant operations
• Influence and support plant leaders to adopt and sustain improvements
• Share best practices and lessons learned across all facilities
• Train and coach employees at all levels on Lean tools and methodologies
• Build internal capability in standard work, SMED, and problem-solving
• Drive a culture of accountability, discipline, and continuous improvement

Requirements

• Ability to influence across multiple sites without direct authority
• Strong facilitation and coaching skills
• High level of ownership and accountability
• Strategic thinking with hands-on execution capability
• Excellent communication across all organizational levels
• Change management and cultural leadership