Director, Continuous Improvement

• Own the multi-year CI roadmap, aligned with Restek’s strategic plan, annual operating plan, and Operations priorities.
• Establish the management system that makes improvement stick (daily management, tiered huddles, A3 problem solving) and define a CI maturity model to guide each function’s progress.
• Partner with Finance to validate savings and ensure improvement gains show up in the P&L.

• Personally lead and facilitate high-impact Kaizen events, Value Stream Mapping, and transformation projects tied to safety, quality, delivery, cost, inventory, and customer outcomes.
• Drive measurable gains in OEE, first-pass yield, scrap and rework, on-time delivery, lead time, inventory turns, customer response time, and total cost of quality.
• Make sure improvement work is well scoped, resourced, and sustained, and bring the best practices from inside and outside Restek to every team.

• Manufacturing: Improve safety, quality, throughput, changeover, and productivity through standard work, visual management, and a Lean production system.
• Customer Experience: Help deliver an industry-leading experience through faster response and resolution, better processes, and digital enablement.
• Supply Chain: Strengthen supplier quality and delivery, optimize inventory, and streamline order-to-cash, delivering measurable cost savings.
• Engineering: Partner on design for manufacturability, new product introduction, and change management to speed time-to-market and build it right the first time.

• Build, lead, and develop the Continuous Improvement team.
• Design and deliver Restek’s CI training curriculum, including Lean fundamentals, Yellow/Green/Black Belt paths, problem-solving methods, and leader standard work.
• Coach senior leaders and frontline managers in CI thinking, and develop change agents at every level to scale CI beyond the central team.
• Put the metrics and dashboards in place that make progress visible from the manufacturing floor to the executive team, and share wins and learnings across the organization.

Qualifications:

The typical requirements for this role include a bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Business Administration (master's degree, preferred), or a related field, plus 10 years of progressive operations and CI experience, including at least 5 years in a senior CI or operational excellence leadership role in manufacturing, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

Additional Skills & Abilities:

• A proven track record of leading enterprise-level Lean transformations with sustained, financially validated results.
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification (Master Black Belt certification is preferred)
• Hands-on experience across multiple functions (manufacturing, supply chain, quality, customer service, and/or engineering), with credibility on the manufacturing floor and with leadership.
• Experience leading and developing CI practitioners and managers.
• Deep fluency in the CI toolkit: Lean (5S, standard work, visual management, flow, pull, SMED, TPM, Kaizen), Six Sigma (DMAIC, SPC, DOE), Value Stream Mapping, Hoshin Kanri, and structured problem solving (A3, 8D, 5-Why, fishbone).
• Advanced Excel and Power BI (or equivalent) skills for data-driven decision making.
• A servant-leader and coach who thinks strategically, executes in detail, and influences from the manufacturing floor to the Leadership Team, with outstanding written, verbal, and executive presentation skills.

Experience in a regulated manufacturing environment (e.g., FDA, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, GMP) or in scientific instruments, life sciences, chromatography, analytical, or precision-manufactured products and experience bringing digital tools and analytics (e.g., MES, ERP, Power BI, advanced analytics) into the CI toolkit is preferred.