Manager - Continuous Improvement

ADNOC Abu Dhabi UAE; Al Ruways Industrial City; On-site; AED 128,534 - 183,621; Full time

Job summary

ADNOC Gas is seeking an experienced Manager of Continuous Improvement to drive enterprise‑wide operational excellence across our oil and gas operations in Abu Dhabi. The role requires leading cross‑functional teams to identify and optimize complex processes, reduce delays, and deliver measurable improvements.

The ideal candidate will have 10–12 years in CI/operational excellence, with a background in heavy industry and strong governance, risk, and safety awareness.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required in engineering, business, operations management, or an equivalent discipline.
• 10–12 years of experience in continuous improvement, operational excellence, or related roles.
• Experience in oil and energy, petrochemicals, utilities, or heavy industry is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise‑wide continuous improvement and operational excellence initiatives.
• Identify and optimize complex, repetitive, or manual processes to reduce delays and rework.
• Define improvement roadmaps with measurable objectives, owners, timelines, and benefits.

Skills

Process mapping

Continuous improvement

Operational excellence

Cross‑functional leadership

Stakeholder management

Change management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Operations Management

Job description

Manager - Continuous Improvement

Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Industry: Oil and Energy

Function: Process

Job type: Full-time

Experience required: 10–12 years

Salary range: 35,000–50,000 (USD)

We are seeking an experienced continuous improvement leader to drive enterprise‑wide operational excellence across ADNOC Gas.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise‑wide continuous improvement and operational excellence initiatives.
• Identify complex, fragmented, repetitive, or manually intensive processes that create delays, rework, excessive workload, or unnecessary manpower demand.
• Conduct structured reviews of operational, technical, commercial, and enabling processes.
• Challenge existing procedures, controls, approval layers, and handoffs where they do not add sufficient value.
• Define improvement opportunities based on business value, execution risk, cost, capacity, and performance impact.
• Develop clear improvement roadmaps with measurable objectives, owners, timelines, and expected benefits.
• Simplify end‑to‑end processes while preserving safety, regulatory, technical, and governance requirements.
• Standardize processes across functions, sites, and business units where common practices can improve consistency.
• Remove duplicated activities, unnecessary approvals, repeated data entry, and avoidable manual controls.
• Improve process interfaces between operations, maintenance, engineering, planning, finance, supply chain, technology, and corporate functions.
• Review how operational modifications and organizational changes are designed, governed, controlled, and implemented.
• Assess whether roles, responsibilities, systems, information flows, and decision rights support efficient execution.
• Recommend changes to process ownership, governance structures, resource allocation, and operating models.
• Ensure process modifications support asset reliability, integrity, safety, availability, and cost performance.
• Evaluate how proposed changes may affect operational risk, workforce capacity, service levels, and business continuity.
• Establish value cases for improvement initiatives using productivity, cost, quality, cycle time, and resource utilization measures.
• Quantify expected savings, cost avoidance, capacity release, and performance improvements.
• Track realized benefits after implementation and address gaps between expected and achieved outcomes.
• Maintain clear visibility of improvement value for senior management and key stakeholders.
• Promote automation as a means of reducing manual work, duplication, errors, and process delays.
• Identify processes suitable for workflow automation, system integration, robotic automation, or intelligent decision support.
• Work with technology, data, and business teams to define practical automation requirements.
• Encourage the use of advanced analytics to identify bottlenecks, performance drivers, and recurring process failures.
• Apply artificial intelligence capabilities where they can improve forecasting, classification, decision support, exception handling, or workload reduction.
• Ensure automated solutions improve process control, transparency, consistency, and data quality.
• Reduce decision latency by improving access to accurate and timely operational information.
• Promote scalable solutions that can be reused across multiple functions or sites.
• Apply structured problem‑solving methods to investigate performance gaps and root causes.
• Use operational data, process metrics, interviews, workshops, and system information to validate findings.
• Distinguish underlying process causes from symptoms or isolated operational incidents.
• Develop practical recommendations that reflect technical, organizational, financial, and operational realities.
• Prioritize improvement opportunities according to value, complexity, risk, and implementation readiness.
• Define performance indicators for process efficiency, quality, cost, workload, and cycle time.
• Build reporting mechanisms to monitor implementation progress and business outcomes.
• Present findings, value cases, risks, and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Translate complex operational and analytical information into clear management decisions.
• Support Operational Excellence outcomes covering safety, reliability, availability, efficiency, and capital discipline.
• Strengthen the relationship between operational performance, cost management, and long‑term value delivery.
• Ensure improvement initiatives do not compromise process safety, asset integrity, compliance, or service quality.
• Identify opportunities to improve organizational capacity without unnecessary workforce expansion.
• Promote efficient use of technical, operational, and corporate resources.
• Facilitate cross‑functional improvement workshops and process design sessions.
• Build alignment among stakeholders with different operational priorities and performance objectives.
• Influence process owners and functional leaders to adopt agreed improvements.
• Address resistance to change through evidence, engagement, and clear explanation of business value.
• Define stakeholder responsibilities for implementation, governance, and benefit realization.
• Support change adoption through communication, training, guidance, and implementation follow‑up.
• Monitor whether new processes and systems are being used as intended.
• Identify adoption barriers and coordinate corrective action.
• Capture lessons learned and replicate successful improvements across the organization.
• Promote a culture of disciplined problem‑solving, value creation, and continuous improvement.
• Maintain appropriate documentation of current‑state processes, future‑state designs, decisions, and realized benefits.

Ideal Profile

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Operations Management, or an equivalent discipline.
• Minimum 10–12 years of experience in continuous improvement, operational excellence, process optimization, performance improvement, or business transformation.
• Previous experience in Oil and Energy, petrochemicals, utilities, manufacturing, or another heavy industrial environment is strongly preferred.
• Strong understanding of end‑to‑end operational and enabling processes.
• Practical knowledge of how process design affects safety, reliability, cost, productivity, and organizational capacity.
• Proven experience leading complex improvement initiatives across multiple functions or operating locations.
• Demonstrated ability to simplify processes while maintaining governance and control requirements.
• Experience developing value cases, productivity assessments, cost reduction plans, and benefit‑tracking mechanisms.
• Strong knowledge of process mapping, root cause analysis, workflow design, and performance measurement.
• Experience identifying opportunities for automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, or system‑enabled improvement.
• Ability to evaluate operating models, governance structures, approval processes, and organizational interfaces.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving capability.
• Structured thinking with the ability to separate symptoms from underlying causes.
• Strong commercial and value‑focused mindset.
• Ability to link process improvements with measurable financial and operational outcomes.
• Confident stakeholder management across operational, technical, corporate, and leadership teams.
• Ability to influence decisions without relying solely on direct authority.
• Strong facilitation skills for workshops, problem‑solving sessions, and process reviews.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to prepare concise recommendations and senior management presentations.
• Strong judgment when balancing efficiency, risk, compliance, safety, and operational requirements.
• Ability to manage multiple improvement initiatives and competing stakeholder priorities.
• Adaptable leadership approach suited to a complex and highly regulated industrial organization.
• Commitment to sustainable change, organizational learning, and continuous performance improvement.

Key Skills

• Process mapping
• Continuous improvement
• Operational excellence
• Process optimization
• End‑to‑end process design
• Process simplification
• Process standardization
• Process governance
• Workflow optimization
• Organizational efficiency
• Productivity improvement
• Cost reduction
• Cost avoidance
• Value realization
• Benefit tracking
• Capacity optimization
• Workload reduction
• Root cause analysis
• Structured problem‑solving
• Current‑state assessment
• Future‑state design
• Business process automation
• Artificial intelligence enablement
• Advanced analytics
• Data‑driven decision‑making
• Cycle time reduction
• Decision latency reduction
• Performance measurement
• KPI development
• Operational reliability
• Asset availability
• Asset integrity
• Safety performance
• Capital discipline
• Change management
• Stakeholder management
• Cross‑functional leadership
• Workshop facilitation
• Business transformation
• Operating model improvement
• Continuous improvement governance
• Heavy industry operations
• Oil and gas processes