Director of Lean Manufacturing and Strategy Deployment

With over 80 years as an industrial technology leader, Kennametal Inc. delivers productivity to customers through materials science, tooling and wear-resistant solutions. Customers across aerospace, earthworks, energy, general engineering and transportation turn to Kennametal to help them manufacture with precision and efficiency. Every day approximately 8,700 employees are helping customers in more than 60 countries stay competitive. Kennametal generated $2 billion in revenues in fiscal 2022. Learn more at www.kennametal.com. Follow @Kennametal: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Director of Lean Manufacturing and Strategy Deployment

Job Summary

The role of Director of Lean Manufacturing and Strategy Deployment is responsible to eliminate waste, optimize process, reduce cost, and boost innovation in a volatile market. The role partners with the Infrastructure Leadership Team, Infrastructure Operations Leadership and teams, and all Kennametal Enterprise organizations to enable alignment and achievement of Kennametal strategic key results throughout the global Infrastructure organization.

Key Job Responsibilities

Lean Manufacturing Key Responsibilities

• Develop and initiate the roll-out of Enterprise-wide lean/continuous improvement strategy and roadmap to drive standardized process and step-changes in manufacturing efficiency and productivity.
• Collaborate with and influence Productivity leaders across manufacturing sites to identify challenges and solutions; share best practices with Lean Manufacturing leadership.
• Coach and Mentor productivity leaders in adopting lean initiatives.
• Provide lean status reports for internal communications all levels including metric based accomplishments of the transformation plan.
• Provide functional leadership for the manufacturing plant’s Lean agenda at assigned site(s)
• Lead in a way that improves enterprise operational performance. Demonstrate the highest commitment to safety, ethics and integrity.
• Analyze material and information flows perform diagnostics on major cost drivers (material, labor and other conversion cost)
• Identify improvement opportunities and establish quantifiable improvement targets in productivity, material consumption, other operation expenses, quality, safety, space utilization, and inventory reduction.
• Responsible to establishing, managing and continuously improving the Management Operating System to enable achievement of Enterprise Key Results

Strategy Deployment Key Responsibilities

• Responsible to establishing, managing and continuously improving the Management Operating System to enable achievement of Infrastructure strategy deployment objectives. This includes cascading annual operational metrics, ensuring a clear reporting system and driving a proactive communication process throughout the global Infrastructure organization.
• Accountable for the strategy and processes to ensure accurate, effective reporting of Operational metrics and other strategic internal business analysis needs. Responsible for alignment with Enterprise Data requirements, best practices and usage of standardized data sources.
• Responsible for leading the Operational Excellence strategies throughout the global Infrastructure organization. Partners with Infrastructure Leadership to identify, prioritize and enable execution of top priority improvement initiatives. Leads chartering of and/or execution of high priority and complex projects using tools which may include Value Stream Mapping, Kaizen and Six Sigma, among Lean and continuous improvement methodologies

Requirements

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive leadership experience in lean manufacturing operations
• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in Engineering
• Lean Manufacturing certification
• Six Sigma Black Belt Preferred

Kennametal Inc. is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. As such, it is the policy of Kennametal Inc. to afford equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status, veteran status, or other protected status, group, or characteristic under federal, state, and/or local law or regulation. It is Kennametal Inc.'s policy to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.