Lean Excellence Project Manager - Remote & Travel

International Paper; United States; Hybrid; USD 137,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

International Paper is seeking a Project Manager of Lean Excellence to drive scalable operational improvements across the Containerboard business. You will be a hands-on change agent, partnering with mill teams to deploy lean tools, lead Kaizen events, and embed standard work and problem-solving into daily operations.

The role requires a strong background in continuous manufacturing, 5+ years of experience, and the ability to influence across functions while traveling up to 90% of the time.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree preferred in business, engineering, operations management, or related field.
• Minimum 5 years of continuous manufacturing experience with proven change leadership skills.
• Demonstrated success utilizing and deploying lean tools.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, coaching and change leadership skills.
• Ability to influence without formal authority across multiple functions.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office.

Responsibilities

• Implement lean tools such as 5S, Kaizen, Standard Work, Visual Management, SMED and Value Stream Mapping.
• Drive waste elimination, process flow optimization, and variation reduction.
• Facilitate structured problem solving using A3, DMAIC, 5-Why, RCFA, and similar methodologies.
• Deliver measurable improvements in safety, quality, delivery, and cost.
• Use data to identify gaps and execute improvement plans with mill teams.
• Document best practices and share improvements.
• Understand and apply financial drivers and KPIs.
• Lead and coach CI events/kaizen with hands-on participation.
• Develop and deliver training materials to ensure CI concepts are understood.

Skills

Lean tools

Analytical skills

Facilitation

Coaching

Change leadership

MS Office

Education

Bachelor's degree preferred in business, engineering, operations management, or related field

Tools

A3 problem solving

DMAIC

Kaizen

Job description

International Paper is seeking a Project Manager of Lean Excellence to drive scalable operational improvements across the Containerboard business. You will be a hands-on change agent, partnering with mill teams to deploy lean tools, lead Kaizen events, and embed standard work and problem-solving into daily operations.

The role requires a strong background in continuous manufacturing, 5+ years of experience, and the ability to influence across functions while traveling up to 90% of the time.