Lead the planning, organizing, design, analysis, coordination, testing, and implementation of continuous improvement solutions and processes to reduce operating expenses, manual effort, increase profitability, and improve service levels to our internal and external customers.

Manage cross-departmental process improvement initiatives and projects that support the needs of JRW and our customers. This role will own activities that include process improvement analysis, workflow design, documentation artifacts, training materials, implementation project management, and user adoption.

JRW Requirements

• Ideates and leads continuous improvement initiatives that help optimize operations, increase profitability, drive compliance, and improve the customer experience.
• Lead and assist cross-functional teams with continuous improvement projects.
• Analyze the fundamental components of problems and work with the team to develop a corrective course of action, creating solutions, documentation, training, and communication protocols as the resolution is implemented.
• Develop and implement changes that improve overall processes likely to add value.
• Manage and drive core continuous improvement projects and process improvements.
• Manage day-to-day processes related to areas of responsibility.
• Create and maintain project work plans.
• Manage issues and roadblocks that arise related to area of responsibility; Respond proactively to unanticipated needs arising out of a variety of inputs; Manage action steps necessary for successful execution of both strategic projects/initiatives and process improvement.
• Understand complex business problems across business units, geographies, and product lines to create problem statements and journey maps, then translate these into data collection and analysis requirements to identify meaningful insights that help improve our customer experience.

Role-Specific Attributes and Skills

• Extremely detail-oriented and able to maintain effective communication.
• Excellent time management skills and ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong organizational and project management skills.
• The ability to work cross-functionally to create, improve, and maintain high-quality end-user documentation and training.
• Exhibit the ability to make good decisions using analysis, customer needs, company intelligence, experience, and judgment under tight deadlines while keeping company objectives in mind.
• Develop processes and procedures, possess problem-solving and negotiation skills.
• Strong leadership skills, including leading projects, patience, compassion, empathy, a passion for customer satisfaction, strong time management skills, and readiness to learn.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Experience & Education

• Bachelor’s degree preferred, or any combination of directly relevant training and experience.
• 5 or more years of previous experience in process improvement, project management, or operational excellence.
• Six Sigma, Lean, or other ASQ continuous improvement certification is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience in leading implementation, management, and integration of new capabilities and solutions is required.
• Excellent verbal and written communication.
• Self-motivated, positive attitude with strong executional capabilities.
• Proficient in MS Office (i.e., Word, Excel, Outlook) and data entry systems.
• Comfortable working in a sales environment.
• Ability to work in and manage a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.
• Food and Beverage Ingredients industry experience is a plus.