Director, Operational Excellence - Pneumatics

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With interesting opportunities in engineering, marketing, sales, supply chain, operations, HR, finance, and more across more than 40 diverse businesses around the globe, chances are, we have something special for you.

Who We Are
The IDEX Performance Pneumatics Group, comprised of Gast, Airtech, and US Valve, is a global leader in engineered solutions for vacuum, pressure, and flow control. With engineering and manufacturing centers in Benton Harbor, Michigan; Rutherford, New Jersey; and Linthicum, Maryland, we offer the scale and agility to innovate, engineer, and transform ideas into reliable solutions for the world’s most critical applications. Our products power critical applications across industries, including data centers, medical and life sciences, industrial automation, and energy systems. The IDEX Performance Pneumatics Group unites three industry-leading brands with a shared mission: to design, create, and deliver advanced solutions for vacuum, pressure, and flow control.. We are driven by innovation, precision engineering, and a commitment to reliability. By partnering closely with customers, we deliver tailored solutions that keep essential systems running.  As part of IDEX Corporation, we leverage global reach and a culture of innovation to enable the technologies shaping modern life. 

Position Summary

The Director of Operational Excellence will lead enterprise-level continuous improvement, advanced processing, and operational excellence across the Pneumatics platform, including Gast Manufacturing, Airtech Vacuum, and U.S. Valve. This role will drive large-scale transformational initiatives, deploy the IDEX Operating Model, and build sustainable CI capability within each business unit by developing BU leaders to identify, lead, and sustain high-impact improvement projects. The Director will translate platform strategy into clear priorities, metrics, dashboards, and operating cadences that improve safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, and customer experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Operational Excellence Strategy: Develop and execute a platform-wide CI and transformation roadmap aligned to business unit priorities, strategic growth objectives, and measurable operational outcomes.
• Large-Scale Transformation: Lead complex, cross-functional transformation projects from opportunity identification and business case development through implementation, adoption, and sustained benefit realization.
• Lean / Continuous Improvement: Lead Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen, value stream improvement, and rapid improvement initiatives to improve productivity, cost, quality, delivery, safety, and customer experience.
• Business Unit Leader Development: Coach and develop BU leaders, site leaders, and functional owners to build local CI capability, lead improvement projects, remove barriers, and sustain operational discipline.
• Strategy Communication: Communicate the operational excellence strategy clearly across all levels of the organization, ensuring leaders and teams understand priorities, expected outcomes, ownership, and progress against goals.
• Metrics, Dashboards & Governance: Develop platform-level KPIs, visual dashboards, governance routines, and stakeholder review cadences that drive transparency, accountability, root cause problem solving, and timely decision-making.
• Standardization: Establish common processes, metrics, standard work, playbooks, and governance across Gast, Airtech, and U.S. Valve while allowing appropriate local adaptation by business unit.
• IDEX Operating Model: Champion consistent adoption of daily management, goal deployment, monthly reviews, 80/20 focus, and disciplined execution.
• Advanced Processing, Automation & AI Enablement: Lead automation, digital productivity, Industry 4.0, AI-enabled workflow improvements, and advanced manufacturing process initiatives, with emphasis on reducing transactional waste, improving decision speed, and increasing productivity.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, Commercial, and IT leaders to identify opportunities, align stakeholders, validate financial impact, and sustain improvements.
• Performance Management: Define, track, and report KPIs; use dashboards, data, and regular operating reviews to drive accountability, escalation