Senior Operational Excellence Manager

Bakkavor Group; Greater Lincolnshire; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading fresh prepared food company in Greater Lincolnshire is seeking a Senior Operational Excellence Manager to develop and implement their Continuous Improvement strategy. This role offers a salary range of £70,000 - £80,000 per annum along with a bonus up to 20% and additional benefits. The ideal candidate will have experience in the food manufacturing sector, specifically in lean methodologies and change project leadership. Join a committed team dedicated to operational excellence.

Benefits

Car allowance £8,400

Bonus up to 20%

Stakeholder pension scheme

Personal accident insurance

Employee assistance programme

Holiday purchase scheme

Dental & hospital cash plans

Access to financial learning tools

Qualifications

• Experience in the food manufacturing industry, preferably chilled.
• Ability to build credible relationships at all levels.
• Good presentation and facilitation skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement the Continuous Improvement strategy.
• Lead critical improvement projects across the site.
• Ensure effective communication and employee engagement.

Skills

Food manufacturing experience

Lean manufacturing

Change project leadership

Presentation and facilitation

Education

Minimum Foundation level in lean or equivalent

Six Sigma (ideally yellow belt)

Tools

Tableau

Job description

Senior Operational Excellence Manager

Salary: £70,000 - £80,000 per annum, depending on experience.

Benefits: up to 20% bonus, £8,400 per annum car allowance, private healthcare.

Location: Spalding, Lincs.

Ways of Working: Site Based.

Shift: Monday - Friday, 08:30 - 17:00.

Contract Type: Permanent.

Why join us?

We're proud to offer you a career with options to explore and pursue. Where you'll be supported to work hard, push further, and show resilience. As a valued Senior Operational Excellence Manager we'll support your ambition, reward your resilience, and encourage you to rise to challenges and create a career you can be proud of too.

Who are Bakkavor?

Bakkavor is one of the leading providers of fresh prepared food in the UK, with an international presence in the US and China. Our 19,000 employees operate from 39 locations, developing and producing innovative food for a wide variety of occasions and budgets. In the UK, we work with leading grocery retailers, focusing on their own label brands.

This fantastic opportunity will be based at our Bakkavor Spalding site, which employs over 1,470 people across 3 manufacturing facilities & 1 Distribution Centre. We specialise in making hand crafted sandwich wraps, salads, dips, soups & sauces and mayonnaise.

About the role.

In this challenging and varied role, you will develop and implement the site's Continuous Improvement strategy, lead critical improvement projects, and facilitate and coach/support site teams in delivering the deployment of the Bakkavor Operating System across the site.

You will design and execute methodologies aligned with the manufacturing strategy, ensuring robust financial governance to deliver projects on time and within budget.

Accountabilities of the role.

• Development of CI Strategy & Culture: Develop a Continuous Improvement strategy for the site, in conjunction with the site leadership team. Strategic direction to be aligned to Sector and Group Operational Excellence strategies and based on an in-depth analysis of business processes. Establish a continuous improvement culture in partnership with the site leadership team.
• Factory of the Future / Capital Plans / Payback projects: Coordinate and lead key projects for improvement across all levels of the organisation. This may include supervising project teams directly or collaborating with managers to eliminate waste (in all forms) and deliver new capacity / capability against the manufacturing strategy / business growth plans. To cover all E2E aspects of the business.
• Developing and supporting site PIP plan delivery: Develop and support delivery of annual PIP plan in line with site manufacturing strategy. Working cross‑functionally to ensure all departments contribute, assist, and deliver quantifiable performance improvement across the business.
• Shaping and deploying a standard operating model within manufacturing: Shaping and deploying the Bakkavor Operating System into site ways of working. The Bakkavor Operating System represents standard processes, tools/techniques and behaviours that support the manufacture of products, creating value for the company and customers (to include Redzone Productivity Module).
• Deployment of MCRS (part of the Bakkavor Operating System): Shaping and deploying a standard Management Control & Reporting Structure across balance score of card metrics into all functions and areas.
• Driving and supporting team Kaizen events: Supporting the delivery of team-based Kaizen improvements in line with top loss data and site manufacturing strategy. Working cross‑functionally to ensure all departments contribute, assist, and deliver quantifiable performance improvement across the business.
• Communication & employee engagement: Ensure mechanisms are in place to communicate and drive employee involvement within continuous improvement projects and continually review their effectiveness and explore new options which link to & support the site engagement plans.
• KPI data evaluation / Tableau expert: Ensure that all improvement projects have sufficient infrastructure to allow tracking, review and evaluation processes. Development of reporting mechanisms to enable the site to analyse data, understand opportunities for improvement and support the creation of improvement narratives.
• Advanced problem‑solving capability: Supporting site teams to solve complex problem by facilitating structured problem‑solving events.

About you.

• Experience of food manufacturing industry (preferably chilled)
• Minimum Foundation level in lean or equivalent and Six Sigma (ideally yellow belt)
• Ability to build credible & successful working relationships at all levels within the organisation
• Experience of working closely and effectively with support functions including: Planning, Engineering, Technical, Process, SHE and HR
• Lean manufacturing experience
• Experience of leading change projects
• Able to influence and build relationships at all levels
• Good presentation and facilitation skills

What you'll receive.

• Car allowance £8,400
• Bonus up to 20%
• A stakeholder pension scheme
• Personal accident Insurance
• Free independent mortgage advice
• Employee assistance programme
• A range of voluntary benefits
• Holiday purchase scheme
• Additional life assurance
• Dental & hospital cash plans
• Discounted tutoring for children
• Access to financial learning tools
• Affordable loans via your salary
• Proud to be and loyal service awards.
• Plus a commitment to your wellbeing that includes emotional, physical and financial support services delivered by our fantastic team of wellbeing champions.

Proud to be Bakkavor

We're proud to be the market leader in the UK fresh prepared food industry. We're proud to supply meals, salads, desserts, pizza and bread to leading grocery retailers including Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury's and Waitrose. We're driven by the hard work and passion of our people and are delighted to offer a wide range of careers across our business – come and join our dedicated Bakkavor team!

At Bakkavor, we are committed to building an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive, and we believe that diversity makes us stronger. We welcome and encourage applications from all backgrounds and ensure fair, transparent recruitment practices. Learn more about our commitment in our Inclusion and Diversity Policy (Inclusion & Diversity Policy).

Find out more and apply.