Continuous Improvement Manager

Tenneco; Burlington (IA); On-site; USD 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Tenneco in Burlington, IA seeks a Continuous Improvement Manager to lead Lean and CI programs aligned with the P3 Operating System. You will drive a roadmap, facilitate workshops, and support ROI improvements across product lines.

The role requires 5+ years in manufacturing engineering, strong leadership, and experience delivering structured improvements through Lean and Six Sigma tools. Collaboration with engineering and management is essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, quality or similar specialized field.
• 5+ years in Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering preferred.
• Lean background with training/leadership experience.
• Ability to work in a team with minimal guidance.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive CI strategy and implement P3 OS roadmap with plant management.
• Lead Lean implementation including technical and managerial aspects.
• Promote Lean tools and Kaizen events to improve performance.
• Coordinate yearly Plant Productivity Improvement plan and targets.
• Identify and drive CI initiatives with cross-functional teams.

Skills

Lean manufacturing

Value stream mapping

Kaizen

Six Sigma

P3 Operating System

Gemba walks

Tier meetings

Education

Bachelor’s degree in business/engineering

Job description

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The Continuous Improvement Manager leads Lean and continuous improvement process implementation in alignment with P3 Operating System, facilitates improvement workshops, is actively involved in the development of the plant productivity improvement plan, implement VSS initiative (Value Stream Simplification) and is a key player to support Return on Sales and Divisional Cash Flow improvement. The Continuous Improvement Manager actively cooperates with Engineering teams to ensure “state of the art” technical improvement in the plant and ensure best practices implementation across similar product lines.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

The following pages describe the skills and requirements needed for the position of the CI Manager.

• Define, drive and execute plant CI strategy that includes the development and execution of a roadmap of implementation of the P3 Operating System, in cooperation with plant management team
• Coordinate and Lead Lean implementation within the plant: both technical and managerial aspects.
• Contribute to Plant performance improvement by promoting the use of Lean tools and techniques, aligned with P3 Operating System. Organize / facilitate Lean events / workshops.
• Coordinate the creation of the yearly Plant Productivity Improvement plan. This includes yearly plant productivity target setting, in alignment with plant management team and regional leadership.
• Identify, prioritize and drive / support the identification & implementation of CI initiatives across entire plant (not only production areas) that provide the highest impact on financial results, involving plant controller and group controller
• Ensure that productivity improvement projects are defined with clear targets, roles and responsibilities
• Track the activities on a regular basis (frequency to be defined based on Plant priorities).
• Report the progress on regular basis to the plant management team and to upper management (regional leadership)
• Promote a continuous improvement culture. Facilitate regular Kaizen events.
• Serve as a change agent with the plant, continually challenge conventional thinking, drive accountability, promote the use of Lean Management tools (i.e.: daily routines, Gemba walks, tiered meetings, layered process audits, TPM, …), in alignment with P3 Operating System.
• Support all departments to achieve their goals regarding productivity improvement by providing appropriate tools and corresponding training.
• Partner/Support the Value Stream Managers (Production Managers), Supervisors and support functions managers on improvement and problem-solving activities (5 Whys, Ishikawa diagram, …) or Six Sigma tools if needed.
• Ensure best practices sharing and implementation in the plant / in the region and within entire PT.
• In cooperation with finance, ensure that actual and forecasted savings reported are accurate
• Ensure that actual monthly savings of month are reported per reporting timing.
• Initiate change processes and drive implementation with plant management team
• Provides training of and support of the P3x organization including development of Standardized Work, Development of production reporting, development and use of OAE and downtime management, and development of an effective Tier meeting structure.

JOB REQUIREMENTS:

EDUCATION:

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, quality or similar specialized field

EXPERIENCE:

• Experience of 5+ years (ideally) in Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering.
• Successful candidates must have a strong manufacturing background, combined with an aptitude for training and leadership.
• Previous experience in a Lean environment (or ideally in Lean implementation) is a significant plus.
• Must have excellent interpersonal skills and have the ability to work in a team environment with little guidance.

Drug Screen and Background check required.