Quality & Continuous Improvement Manager

Unifrax (Derby) Limited; East Midlands; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Alkegen, a specialist materials leader, seeks a Quality & CI leader at Holywell site to define and drive QCI strategies aligned with corporate goals. You will work with local management to set improvement priorities across the value chain, monitor KPIs, and deploy Lean and Six Sigma tools to improve processes.

You will train site teams, ensure audits readiness, and lead cross-functional collaboration to deliver measurable performance gains.

Qualifications

• Experience leading Quality and Continuous Improvement initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Defining and developing Quality and Continuous Improvement (Q&CI) strategies in line with site & company strategy.
• Working with local management team to set coherent and aligned improvement priorities across the value chain, monitoring progress, analysing KPIs and acting on deviations from targets.
• Deploy operational & quality improvement strategies across the site to improve business processes and performance in a continuous and sustained way.
• Set local Quality Objectives in line with corporate policy deployment and ensure employees are trained to deliver these objectives.
• Monitor customer scorecards and customer portals.
• Be the subject matter expert (SME) on site for continuous improvement methodologies and guide / train members of the site team in Lean and Six Sigma methods to ensure tools are embedded into the organisation.
• Lead the deployment of WCM initiatives across the organisation including value stream mapping, improved flow, 5S, visual factory, SMED, TPM , Autonomous Maintenance, OEE and other Lean tools and principles in order to impact the customer and business metrics.
• Responsible for maintaining and continually improving the effectiveness of the Holywell Business Management system in accordance with current IATF and Customer Specific Requirements.
• Ensure coordinated readiness for all Internal and External quality audits and direct external third party registration/surveillance audits, typically in accordance with ISO9001, IATF and VDA6.3 standards.
• Coordinate with Sales, Purchasing, Engineering and Production to resolve customer complaints and concerns in a timely manner ≤30 Days.
• Develop and manage Part Control Plans to ensure Special Characteristics are traceable through D/PFMEAs to Control Plans and they are selected and monitored effectively through documented validation results.
• Undertake day to day management of the site Quality team, standard tasks include o Support Site Tiered Accountability Process to effectively communicate and reinforce commitment to quality improvement of Monthly adaptive Coaching to maximize employee performance and development of Management of controlled document system (CEBOS) , Timely Execution of APQP / PPAP processes to meet customer requirements.
• Manage the effective deployment of all Quality personnel in support of Holywell achieving commitments against Must Win Battles while working in line with company core values.
• External Complaint reduction year on year on Customer OTIF.
• Variation reduction on key product characteristics.
• Embedding the Quality Stop Work policy across site.
• Work directly on focused improvement projects that are critical for the site, prioritising projects that will deliver best possible financial impacts and provide timely and accurate input to annual budgets and forecasts.
• Train employees in basic WCM skills and act as a change agent to instil WCM culture throughout the organization.

Job description

Alkegen, a specialist materials leader, seeks a Quality & CI leader at Holywell site to define and drive QCI strategies aligned with corporate goals. You will work with local management to set improvement priorities across the value chain, monitor KPIs, and deploy Lean and Six Sigma tools to improve processes.

You will train site teams, ensure audits readiness, and lead cross-functional collaboration to deliver measurable performance gains.