Operational Excellence Manager

About Kennametal

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 and defense, 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 nearly 100 countries stay competitive. Kennametal generated $2.1 billion in revenues in fiscal 2023. Learn more at www.kennametal.com. Follow @Kennametal: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Job Title: Operational Excellence Manager
Location: Rogers, AR

Job Summary:

The Operational Excellence Manager is responsible for leading and implementing continuous improvement initiatives at their location and supporting additional Kennametal sites, as needed. They analyze existing processes, identify areas for improvement, and lead kaizen activities to optimize operations and increase efficiency. This position will report to the Sr.OpEx Manager under the Global OpEx department, with a dotted line to plant management to drive alignment, gain support, train personnel, and implement improvement initiatives that build lean culture.

 Key Job Responsibilities:

Lean COMPETENCIES

• Develop competencies of all appropriate people of the Site / Plant about :
• 5S & Product respect.
• Reduction of equipment losses.
• Direct Labor efficiency.
• Scrap reduction.
• WIP reduction.
• Lean industrialization.
• VSM.
• To become autonomous in continuous improvement management.
• Manage site OpEx engineer if needed.

Lean STRATEGIES

• Propose to the Site / Plant Manager the internal lean strategy of the Site / Plant.
• Ensure that the lean rules are taken into account in new projects during validation of each phase.
• Help Site / Plant Manager to manage continuous improvement.
• Monitor the whole lean initiative deployment.
• Manage the production productivity improvement roadmaps.

Lean GEMBA ACTIVITIES

• For the 7 fields of competences listed above:
• Deploy lean standards & best practices within the Site / Plant.
• Make sure that lean standards are fully applied on the Site / Plant.
• Detect abnormalities vs. lean standards.
• React to identify root cause and come back to standard.

Lean RESULTS

• Manage the lean budget.
• Manage the results of the productivity roadmap.
• Manage the results of the 7 fields of competencies listed above
• Implement the management of the daily results
• Lead the weekly & monthly results and associated TOP improvement plans.
• Data analysis and reporting

 Group lean CONTRIBUTION

• Develop and share specific expertise with Site / Plant lean Managers of the region.
• Support Global/regional lean Manager for the benchmark of the local knowledge.

Highlight the main responsibilities:

Lean COMPETENCES

• Organize trainings for 5S, Product respect, TPM, SMED, Hoshin, STOP SCRAP, VSM, Kanban, Continuous flow, lean industrialization in accordance to Plant / Site priorities.
• Assess the lean standards are applied properly.
• Permanently promote the Lean principles.
• Organize daily meetings with internal Lean network.
• Perform annual professional competences appraisal.
• Validate the annual review of Lean engineer/analyst, if any.

Lean STRATEGIES

• Challenge the Lean design concept & the systematic lean investment approach in each phase.
• Help the Site / Plant Manager to keep a continuous improvement mindset, behavior & policy whatever the operational situation.
• Support for the internal physical flows the Site / Plant Manager for VSM master plan, propose the yearly workshops list.
• Ensure Lean deployment (KPS, standards, workshops, and Global lean initiatives) in all production and Logistic departments.
• Collaboration and communication: Effective collaboration and communication are vital for success in this role. The Opex manager works closely with plant leadership, operations teams, quality assurance, maintenance, and other stakeholders. He / she communicates progress, challenges, and results to senior management and provide regular updates on Lean or Opex initiatives.

Lean GEMBA ACTIVITIES

• Do On Job Training to coach Lean engineers/analyst & Site / Plant members on application of Lean tools and methodologies.
• Permanently help production Managers to detect and react to non-conformances against Lean standards.
• Lead kaizens and workshops. Working closely with cross-functional teams to streamline workflows, eliminate bottlenecks, and optimize resource allocation. This involves studying production data, conducting time studies, and using various tools to identify opportunities for efficiency gains.
• Lead pilot workshops for new Lean methodology for the site.
• Ensure the management of the maintenance of Lean tools through appropriate audits.
• Prepare & organize the weekly Site / Plant Lean committee, including agenda proposal, lead by the Site / Plant Manager, review kaizen workshops and write the minute.

Global Lean and Region lean CONTRIBUTION

• Accelerate Plant / Site progress through production & Supply Chain best practices sharing and deployment of best practices from outside the Site / Plant.

Lean RESULTS

• Prepare the Site / Plant budget concerning Lean targets.
• Support Lean engineers/technician/analyst competence development and workshop pilots on results achievement and associated action plan.
• Manage the building of the tools to monitor the results daily.
• Ensure a lean reporting, KOS metrics correct.
• Quarterly lean mission report, share with site management team kaizen workshop status and saving achievements. (last quarter completed workshop, next quarter planned workshop, year to day saving summary, etc..
• Change management and establish continuous improvement culture agent for the plant

Education, Work Experience, Skills, Certificates

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, or related field required, with 3-5 years demonstrated success in manufacturing and/or supply chain experience plus lean training; equivalent experience in Lean Manufacturing role may be considered in lieu of degree.

Knowledge and practice experience of the following tools:

• Strong leadership skills including communication, teaching and coaching skills.
• Financial Acumen
• Data analyzation, platforms, data modeling and visualization
• Advanced in Excel, PowerBI, Project Management tools
• 5S & Zoning, visual management.
• Standard work and cycle time measurement.
• Muda Hunting.
• Pull flow/ Kanban.
• SMED.
• TPM.
• VSM.
• Data analysis and related software (i.e. Minitab)
• Industrial/Mechanical Engineer, technician or equivalent 
• 6 Sigma Greenbelt or Blackbelt is plus

To be considered for this position, you must be legally authorized to work in the US (excluding Optional Practice Testing) and not require sponsorship now or in the future.

Equal Opportunity Employer