Operational Excellence Mgr.

What makes this a great opportunity?

Maker's Mark Bourbon is the embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit. Our founders, Bill Sr. and Margie Samuels, embarked on a deliberate mission to create a bourbon they would proudly share with their neighbors, family, and friends. In the early 1950s, they burned their old family whisky recipe and meticulously crafted every detail of their bourbon. One of their iconic decisions was to hand-dip every bottle in the now-famous red wax. Since then, our commitment to their vision has remained unwavering. We continue to craft our bourbon with purpose and consistency, striving to create remarkable experiences for fans worldwide.

Role Responsibilities

Guides all continuous improvement initiatives within the plant. Works with plant level staff and management on Lean implementation using TRACC as the principal tool. Ensures the development of a robust Lean Future State Strategy to the implemented plant wide.

· Drives diagnostic and development program at the plant

· Ensure adherence to TRACC and other standards for the site, value stream and team improvement boards enabling a Lean culture and progression of the Lean journey. Supports plant leaders through required and special team meetings.

· Provides high level of technical and operational recommendations in meeting productivity, material control, product quality, and customer service goals.

· Working with HR leadership, ensures that the plant organizational structure has been reviewed and that resources are aligned for the Lean transformation.

· Helps develop plant Lean advocates with an emphasis on championing the plant’s goals, objectives and implementation plans relative to TRACC assessments, plant strategy deployment, and future state plans.

· Leads work at the assigned focus area (e.g., Model line, process, function)

· Owns and drives the roll out of TRACC across the plant.

· Supports line manager in changes at the frontline. Ensures on-going education of all employees at the plant in TRACC and other Lean and Continuous Improvement system.

· Communicates the status of all Lean efforts to the plant leadership. Provides documentation of results and benefits achieved to the plant leadership as reported through TRACC assessments and scorecard.

· Extensive experience going from the “shop floor” to plant management levels facilitating change in culture of employees, business leaders, departments and business organizations to embrace Lean and Six Sigma philosophies to significantly improve business execution

· Develops weekly and monthly reports documenting progress toward goals and objectives of improvement

· Documents practices, policies and procedures to enable subsequent implementations to align with initial implementation and align with other systems such as ISK and other management or data systems

· Demonstrates a results-based leadership style with strong impact and influencing skills

· Tenacity and energy in leading change towards an effective work environment

· Welcomes and embraces accountability, diversity and inclusion

· Communicates effectively to direct and motivate team and others, maintaining a persuasive and creditable presentation style at all levels of the organization

· Promotes and adheres to Food Safety, 5S and ISO standards.

· Maintains a safe working environment in accordance with OSHA and Safety Regulations

· Transfers the ownership of Lean principles to facility leadership and Lean terms once implemented

· Shares “best practice” methods and ideas with other networks

· Supports plant management and plant teams in driving change

· Promotes a Continuous Learning environment through identifying training gaps and coordinating the development, implementation and validation of training while maintaining the Learning Management System and Training Matrices

· Provide coaching and development

· Works with EH&S department to develop Maker’s Mark Employee Safety Team and develops the team into TRACC coaches to ease the transition of other departments in the change process.

· Supports and adhere to the job requirements for the department with regards to Quality, Food Safety, Environmental, Health, and Safety regulations and fully support the company IMS objectives and initiatives

· Other duties as indicated

Qualifications

· Working knowledge of computer systems, to include the Microsoft Office suite of applications. Strong working knowledge in Excel (regression analysis, pivot tables)

· Good communication skills both written and verbal.

· Comfortable speaking to large audiences

· Previous training and development experience

· Industry experience – ability to lead a team

· Knowledge of Food Safety and GMP practices

· Must have mobility to access all areas of the plant, climb ladders and walk up and down stairs, stoop and bend, and lift up to 40 lbs.

· Experience with TRACC, Six Sigma and/or Lean methodologies preferred

· Ability to facilitate workshops and customize to specific site needs

· Must be willing to learn and understand the culture to energize teams, deal with resistance and sustain improvement work

· Bachelor’s degree preferred

· Certifications / licensure – SAP, Lean manufacturing, HACCP and ISO or Continuous Improvement experience preferred

· Ability to work all shifts as needed