Your Opportunity as an Operational Excellence Manager

The Operational Excellence Manager is responsible for coaching site pillar leaders and the entire plant organization towards the successful utilization of Smucker Quality Management Systems (SQMS) and High Performance Organization (HPO) tools and adherence to SQMS and HPO practices. These tools ensure the organization is designed to deliver the site plan through loss elimination and the engagement of all employees. The Operational Excellence Manager drives consistent and effective use of pillar tools, effective communication across teams, and reapplication of company best practices and standards. The Operational Excellence Manager is to become the resident expert of SQMS and HPO tools and practices.

Location: Decatur, AL manufacturing plant

Reports To: Plant Manager

Work Arrangements: 100% on-site

Willingness to work off shift hours (nights, evenings, weekends, and holidays) and flow to the work as needed

In This Role You Will

Assist site leadership team in developing HPO systems and behaviors during planning, startup, and operation of new plant
Coach plant leadership and pillars to build high performance capability at all levels of the organization
- Help to ensure reliability systems are developed to be as robust as safety and quality systems
- Ensure standardized pillar requirements are met across all pillars
- Ensure rapid lead line reapplication across the site
- Function as Work Process Improvement pillar owner
Ensure site adherence to master planning cadence
- Ensure completion and / or review of site loss analysis action plan
- Ensure completion of organization performance modeling or health assessment
- Lead internal and external SQMS phase assessment for the site
- Coach pillar leaders and department managers to build and execute plans that connects to site plan
- Establish a glide path for SQMS phase completion
Support the results management process at all levels of the organization
- Provide coaching on how to determine appropriate metric and targets at all levels of the organization
- Ensure result updates are clearly displayed throughout the plant
- Provide coaching to pillar leads and department managers on the gap analysis process and triggers for response
- Ensure data driven decision making occurs at all levels of the organization

The Right Place for You

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.

Minimum Requirements

What we are looking for:

A Bachelor’s degree
Prior operations experience using continuous improvement (CI, SQMS, HPO, Operational Excellence, etc.) tools to deliver business results
Prior success in improving and sustaining results
Experience in training, facilitation and leading groups
Ability to lead by influencing others
Ability to work with people at all levels of the organization

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role:

Working knowledge of the intents and details for all CI pillars
Previous experience leading a CI and / or Quality systems pillar (FI – Focused Improvement, etc.)
Experience with plant or large project start up
Food (pet or human) and / or beverage manufacturing experience

Learn More About Working at Smucker  

Our Total Rewards Benefits Program
Our Thriving Together Philosophy Supporting All Impacted by Our Business
Our Continued Progress on Inclusion, Diversity and Equity

The J.M. Smucker Co. jobs

Operational Excellence Manager