Director of Operational Excellence & Process Improvement

Vulcan Elements; North Dakota; On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Vulcan Elements in North Dakota seeks a Director of Operational Excellence to design and stand up the plant operating system and integrated management framework. You will drive training, certifications, and a continuous improvement program across operators and engineers.

You will lead audits, CAPA, and management reviews while coordinating Lean Six Sigma belts and a structured problem‑solving culture to improve yield, quality and efficiency.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (mechanical, chemical, industrial, materials or a related discipline).
• Six Sigma Black Belt certification, with a documented portfolio of completed projects and verified financial benefit.
• Direct experience designing and deploying a plant operating system — tiered accountability, KPI cascade, structured problem solving and layered process confirmation.
• Proven ability to influence without authority. This role carries three direct reports and site-wide scope.
• Excellent facilitation, written communication and executive presentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Establish the site’s integrated management system architecture and the ISO framework it operates under, beginning with ISO 9001 and sequencing ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 as the site matures.
• Define the documentation hierarchy — policy, procedure, work instruction, form and record — and own the document control and change governance model that every function writes into.
• Build and lead the internal audit program: audit schedule, auditor qualification and training, finding classification, corrective and preventive action (CAPA) workflow, and closure verification.
• Design the management review cadence and the evidence that feeds it so reviews drive decisions rather than restate metrics.
• Ensure the management system interlocks cleanly with PSM elements — management of change, pre‑startup safety review, and operational discipline — rather than running as a parallel structure.
• Prepare and lead the site through certification audits, surveillance audits and customer or regulatory assessments.
• Own the site continuous improvement strategy, portfolio and governance: idea capture, prioritization against business impact, execution discipline, and independent verification of realized benefit.
• Deploy a common structured problem‑solving method (DMAIC and A3 or equivalent), train the organization in it, and establish it as the expected response to any significant deviation, defect or loss.
• Lead value stream mapping across the three process areas and the material flow between them; convert current‑state findings into a sequenced improvement roadmap with named owners and committed dates.
• Establish the standard work, 5S, visual management and waste‑elimination practices that make improvement sustainable rather than episodic.
• Drive measurable results in yield, first‑pass quality, OEE, changeover time, scrap and conversion cost, and report benefit realization to site and executive leadership.
• Build and run the internal belt program — Yellow, Green and Black Belt — including project selection, coaching, tollgate review and certification, developing improvement capability inside the workforce rather than relying on external resources.
• Facilitate kaizen events and rapid improvement workshops, and coach area leadership to run them independently over time.

Skills

Leadership

Change management

Process improvement

DMAIC

KPI cascade

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (mechanical, chemical, industrial, materials or a related discipline)

Job description

Vulcan Elements in North Dakota seeks a Director of Operational Excellence to design and stand up the plant operating system and integrated management framework. You will drive training, certifications, and a continuous improvement program across operators and engineers.

You will lead audits, CAPA, and management reviews while coordinating Lean Six Sigma belts and a structured problem‑solving culture to improve yield, quality and efficiency.