Director of Enterprise Operational Excellence

Komline; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Komline is seeking a Director of Operational Excellence in Washington, DC, to lead the Komline Business System (KBS) and enterprise CI strategy. You will partner with GMs, Plant Managers, and functional leaders to improve safety, quality, delivery, cost, and working capital while scaling proven practices across the network.

The role demands Lean expertise, hands-on shop-floor credibility, and executive presence to influence decentralized leaders.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Business, or a related field.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in manufacturing operations, continuous improvement, operational excellence, industrial engineering, or related leadership roles.
• Demonstrated success leading Lean / continuous improvement across multiple sites or business units.
• Strong knowledge of Lean manufacturing, daily management, kaizen, standard work, value-stream mapping, structured problem solving, and performance management.
• Proven ability to influence GMs, Plant Managers, and functional leaders without relying on direct authority.
• Strong business and financial acumen with the ability to translate operational improvements into measurable financial impact.
• Excellent leadership, coaching, facilitation, communication, and executive presentation skills.
• Ability to travel approximately 50%+, depending on site and project needs.

Responsibilities

• Develop and lead implementation of the KBS Operational Excellence strategy, roadmap, standards, and multi-year improvement agenda across all sites.
• Lead, coach, and develop the CI Manager team and other improvement resources; establish clear site coverage, priorities, and deployment expectations.
• Partner with GMs and Plant Managers to identify the highest-impact opportunities and build site-level improvement pipelines delivering improvements in safety, productivity, delivery, lead time, quality, inventory, and working capital.
• Establish and sustain common Lean / KBS operating practices, including daily management, visual management, standard work, problem solving, RCCM, value-stream improvement, kaizen, and leader standard work.
• Create a practical maturity assessment for Operational Excellence and use it to prioritize coaching, capability building, and site support; track improvements in maturity and consistent adoption of core operating practices.
• Drive measurable productivity and capacity improvements through flow, labor optimization, constraint removal, setup reduction, layout improvement, and waste elimination.
• Partner with Industrial Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, EHS, Finance, Engineering, HR, and other enterprise functions to quantify benefits and ensure improvements are sustained.
• Build CI capability within site leadership and frontline teams through training, coaching, kaizen leadership, and development of local change agents.
• Establish common operational KPI definitions and review routines that enable benchmarking and the sharing and scaling of best practices across Komline.
• Support acquisition integration by assessing operational maturity, identifying improvement opportunities, and integrating acquired sites into Komline’s operating system.
• Provide regular enterprise-level reporting to the COO on CI pipeline, benefits realization, site maturity, risks, and resource priorities.
• Promote a culture of accountability, structured problem solving, and continuous improvement while maintaining strong partnership with decentralized business leadership

Skills

Lean manufacturing

Daily management

Kaizen

Standard work

Problem solving

Executive presence

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/Operations/Supply Chain/Business

Job description

Komline is seeking a Director of Operational Excellence in Washington, DC, to lead the Komline Business System (KBS) and enterprise CI strategy. You will partner with GMs, Plant Managers, and functional leaders to improve safety, quality, delivery, cost, and working capital while scaling proven practices across the network.

The role demands Lean expertise, hands-on shop-floor credibility, and executive presence to influence decentralized leaders.