Manufacturing Excellence & Process Improvement Lead

PepsiCo; Cork; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

PepsiCo in Cork, Ireland, seeks an Operational Excellence Manager to drive the PGCS Operations Performance agenda across sites, improving KPIs, asset optimization and best-practices adoption. You’ll lead cross-functional SMEs, coordinate plant interventions and push world-class standards in manufacturing.

Key focus areas include true efficiency, yield optimization, schedule adherence, and labour productivity, with a strong emphasis on data-driven governance, change management, and collaboration

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Finance, Science, Chemistry or applicable alternative.
• LSS certification, Black Belt or Master Black Belt certification is a distinct advantage.
• Significant experience in dealing with multiple Project management processes. Experience leading and implementing significant complex/transformational projects.
• Significant experience internally or else in other related industries in the areas of R&D, Commercialisation, New Products, and/or Plant experience.
• Change management training and experience are advantageous, taking special consideration in communication with stakeholders and explaining the whys; always open to hearing all the pros and cons; giving support to overcome the changes and help to solve non-advertised inconveniences associated.
• Experience working in a cross-cultural, multi-geography environment.
• Written and Verbal skills required to drive communication and change both at the senior leadership and front-line levels of the organisation.
• For this role, it is crucial to be collaborative, analytic, open-minded, inspire confidence and give support.
• Act as a business partner, building cross-team, cross-functional and cross-divisional partnerships that create synergies across PepsiCo
• High level of integrity and confidentiality always.
• Knowledge of discrete event simulation and scheduling optimisation & APS is a differentiator

Responsibilities

• Execute the implementation and governance of programs and actions to improve the PGCS Operational KPIs (True Efficiency, Yield Loss and Usage, Reserves, Write-offs, Schedule Adherence, and Labor productivity).
• Translate data insights into meaningful, impactful, and timely actions.
• Ensure clear communication to deliver plant-specific actions and translate the insights into Global-driven actions or programs.
• Ensure the operational KPIs are 4 C’s: Correct, Continuous, Complete and Consistent through training, validations, and audits.
• Leverage that all the benefits from the KPIs improvements, tangible or non-tangible, are correctly and timely captured and reported.
• Work with Data analytics to deploy the right KPIs from FL to VP level.
• Use of Lean tools and LSS analysis to identify, measure and eliminate gaps in standard.
• Defining and enabling the global standard approach to progress towards world-class performance.
• Execute the implementation of new operational KPIs: Train critical stakeholders across PGCS; Validate the implementation of the KPI.
• Drive Plant technical standards and beyond: Propose and execute Plant interventions to drive the fast turnaround of results by identifying trends from the data.
• Support the Plants for asks for intervention / deep dives; Develop the technical expertise and network across the sites.
• Build technical capability in the sites throughout the Site SMEs; Design and deployment of trial protocol standards and processes to introduce ‘change’ into operations.
• Own and develop the content of standard critical inputs of the process; Lead continuous improvement process for capital projects.
• Acting in the commissioning process in partnership with technical Services as a continuous improvement process for delivering the capital agenda.
• Input into new equipment design, trial and deployment; Lead the collaboration between peers in technical service, EHS, Supply Chain and R&D.
• Build a technical community (SMEs) to enable the execution and delivery of the process standards, with specific personal accountability for building technical capability and knowledge of processes for control at all levels of manufacturing.
• Govern the Asset Optimization program for PGCS operations: Ensure that the Asset Optimization action plans are timely executed by partnering with plant stakeholders.
• Ensure a clear correlation and impact driven by actions that release capacity and enable capital deferral in tangible savings or cost avoidance.
• Execute the Best Practices Sharing and Adoption program: Best Practice sharing and adoption system administrator, lead any change management process in partnership with IT.
• Support and coach plants and HQ users to use the BP sharing and adoption system.
• Drive the Operations Best Practices cadence with the plants and Global SMEs

Skills

Lean Six Sigma

Project management

Cross-functional collaboration

Change management

Cross-cultural collaboration

Written and verbal communication

Analytical thinking

Business partnering

Integrity and confidentiality

Discrete event simulation

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Finance, Science, Chemistry or applicable alternative

Job description

PepsiCo in Cork, Ireland, seeks an Operational Excellence Manager to drive the PGCS Operations Performance agenda across sites, improving KPIs, asset optimization and best-practices adoption. You’ll lead cross-functional SMEs, coordinate plant interventions and push world-class standards in manufacturing.

Key focus areas include true efficiency, yield optimization, schedule adherence, and labour productivity, with a strong emphasis on data-driven governance, change management, and collaboration