Continuous Improvement Lead (North York or Brampton)

Job Responsibility:

Our client is a manufacturer of a wide variety of crackers and better-for-you snacks for retailers and top-tier brands across North America. With growing demand for their health-conscious products, they enjoy supply arrangements with retailers representing more than 70% of the North American marketplace including traditional grocery, mass, and discount formats.

The Continuous Improvement Lead (CI) is responsible for driving process and capability improvement to ultimately deliver breakthrough results and achieve the plant goals, by working with cross-functional teams to optimize processes, create new processes, identify areas of improvement, and drive the culture of CI within the organization through coaching. The CI Lead acts as a catalyst for process owners to achieve defined improvement objectives and specific goals. The Continuous Improvement (CI) Lead will implement initiatives to facilitate companywide process improvements through effective use of lean principles and tools (e.g.,VSM, 5S, Leader standard work, Gemba/Manufacturing Operating System board walks, Kaizen, etc.). They will assist with the development of training material as required to develop, optimize and improve process by continuous improvement tools (i.e. Lean Manufacturing, 6 sigma).

What you'll be doing:

• Support Plant Leadership through participation in Daily Operational Reviews, problem solving initiatives, data analysis, metric reporting, and effective loss elimination to improve plant reliability and waste reduction.
• Help implement change management principles at all levels of the plant, through coaching and engaging employees.
• Achieve plant productivity targets by developing projects, ideas and best practices linked to the plant Loss Analysis.
• Validate new processes and optimize current processes (Ex: Changeovers, Sanitation, CIL, Center lining, etc.)
• Implement and train different functions on new tools (ex: standard work, TPM tools, gap analysis, data analysis, loss analysis) and ensure employee capability is being built.
• Play an important part in leading and supporting cross functional teams though the preparation, execution, and follow up of continuous improvement projects.
• Manufacturing Operating System (MOS) Captain process -Enterprise Wide- accountable for support of MOS implementation, standardization, and improvement initiatives.
• Lean Implementation coaching, promotion, and Kaizen events/ sprints.
• CI Project Management - Engage and Foster Commitment at all levels in Continuous Improvement initiatives, drive project completion with focus is on material flow, process workflows and reducing process variation while working towards greater levels of standardization.
• Maintain Current State and Future Value Stream Maps (or any other methodology to identify value / nonvalue added activities)
• Define and lead Improvement projects by: Analyze baseline data/ current state and drive team activities to ensure project completion will meet an agreed-upon future state. Implement systems, based on lean principles, to: Improve efficiency and Eliminate waste. Simplify and standardize the area.
• Spend time on the floor with the people that are doing the work to understand the problem, become an expert in the process and improve it.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or technical diploma from an accredited institution in Industrial Engineering or related field
• Min 3 years of Industrial engineering experience working as continuous improvement or lean manufacturing deployment.
• Previous experience in the food, dairy, beverage, or packaged goods industry is a definite asset.
• Must be knowledgeable and be able to follow GMPs, Food Safety and Health & Safety requirements.
• Desirable certifications Green Belt, Black Belt, Six Sigma or similar.
• Superior communication skills in a multi-cultural environment and the ability to deal with a variety of front-line industrial relations issues.
• Takes initiative, exercises good judgment in day-to-day business decisions.
• Strong leadership skills
• Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Demonstrated team player with ability to learn quickly.
• Demonstrated high level of self-motivation with a strong desire to solve problems.
• Aptitude to understand and resolve complex issues, and excellent customer-service skills.
• Possess adaptability and change friendly attitude.
• Proven ability to get results with a ‘can do' attitude in a fast paced and dynamic environment.
• Prior experience leading CI projects incorporating 5S, Kanban, Visual Management, and other Lean methodologies.
• Proven capability of leading a transformation effort, including change management, ensuring stakeholder engagement and robust communication
• The ability to coach, inspire and work with cross functional managers, supervisors ,and employees.
• Ability to influence all levels of the organization and make strategic decisions.
• The ability to work in the context of a corporate wide lean standardization program but also provide best practices that may be able to help other sites.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to build relationships.
• Strong leadership skills to motivate, and retain well-qualified individuals of diverse talents, interests, and cultural backgrounds.
• Must have the leadership presence to energize, drive and lead the teams, and to be able to influence with integrity at all levels of the organization and enable result through others.

For consideration, please apply online. As part of our commitment to inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility, our goal is a workforce built on respect that reflects the communities we serve. We thank all applicants for their interest in MaxPeople but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

We are proud to be in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005 and the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation. We are happy to honor accommodations at any part of the recruitment process and invite you to let us know how we can help.