Position Summary:

Guides and cultivates the company culture of continuous improvement by educating personnel on lean/continuous improvement concepts and tools, identifying areas for improvement, developing and implementing initiatives, coordinating Kaizen events, monitoring progress and helping production lines to achieve their goals.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leads process stability and capability studies on existing processes, analyzes results, recommends changes and verifies effectiveness.
• Coordinates pre-launch production trial run process monitoring.
• Applies Lean Six Sigma process improvement methodology.
• Leads process improvement teams, coordinates Kaizen events.
• Collaborates with, leads, supports, and coaches continuous improvement leaders throughout all levels of the organization.
• Initiates and conducts periodic reviews of manufacturing strategy, including equipment reliability/capability, capacity planning and quality improvement.
• Identifies opportunities to eliminate waste, reduce changeover time, improve part flow, and improve cycle time.
• Oversees the progress of 5S & 3D and follows up on progress of implementation plan of each Kaizen event.
• Assists the effort to maintain a safe and organized working environment, ensuring full compliance with local, state and federal (EPA and OSHA) regulations, initiating safety improvements, and ensuring that all associates are trained in the proper and safe use of production related equipment.
• Other duties as assigned.

Skills and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree preferred or equivalent combination of education & experience.
• 1 - 3 years' experience with lean manufacturing practices, 5S workplace, machine reliability, waste reduction and visual factory management.
• Strong math and computer skills, experience with Microsoft Office.
• Strong presentations skills.
• Ability to motivate, coach, train, maintain a spirit of teamwork and create an enthusiasm for improvement.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Team oriented.
• Ability to work well cross-functionally and communicate with internal and external parties.
• Strong problem-solving skills, including ability to collect data, establish facts, draw conclusions and recommend effective corrective action.
• Ability to organize, plan, allocate resources and prioritize in order to meet multiple overlapping and competing deadlines and strict timelines.
• Strict attention to safety.
• Overnight and international travel may be required.
• Previous experience in automotive manufacturing or in a multi-cultural environment a plus.