Productivity and Process Improvement Manager, NAM Supply Chain

Solenis is a leading global producer of specialty chemicals focused on delivering sustainable solutions for water-intensive industries, including consumer, industrial, institutional, food and beverage, and pool and spa water markets. Owned by Platinum Equity, the company’s product portfolio includes a broad array of water treatment chemistries, process aids, functional additives, and cleaners and disinfectants, as well as state-of-the-art monitoring and control systems. These technologies are used by customers to improve operational efficiencies, enhance product quality, protect plant assets, minimize environmental impact, and create cleaner and safer environments.  

Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, the company has 69 manufacturing facilities strategically located around the globe and employs a team of over 16,100 professionals in 130 countries across six continents. Solenis is a 2024 US Best Managed Company, recognized fouryears in a row. For more information about Solenis, please visit www.solenis.com. 

The Productivity and Process Improvement Manager will design and execute programs to deliver cost out and project execution for the Supply Chain in North America, building a culture of continuous improvement. This role has regional scope and includes both cross functional teams for successful execution. This role will facilitate company process improvement initiatives for the North America region to improve delivery for our customers.

The role will need to design programs, generate return hypotheses, and create project teams to deliver project execution and savings. The role will need to generate artifacts for senior leader reviews and follow the project management ways of working to achieve success.

The work is fast paced with high visibility. The person who takes this role will need operate at a high operational tempo, manage company governance processes, and present results to executives monthly. 

Responsibilities:

• Design processes and teams to achieve execution of projects as a result of M&A, growth, capacity release, and productivity.
• Facilitate cross functional project teams that design and execute productivity initiatives.
• Create artifacts including: 1) project charters, 2) project workplans, 3) executive report-outs, 4) scorecards.
• Generate targets and transparently share variance reporting (actuals vs target) on milestones and objectives.
• Generate hypotheses for potential projects, quickly test them, and scale successful initiatives.
• Evaluate and prioritize potential improvements.
• Establish governance and executive report outs.
• Comply with TMO ways of working and artifact requirements (charters, workplans, executive present outs, executive alignment, and scorecard).
• Plan and execute local or global workshops to help productivity team members identify/generate ideas.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in Supply Chain or Operations.

• Cross functional experience.

• Experience with digital tools is preferred.

• Process improvement experience (Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, etc.) or cost out experience.

• Critical thinking skills

• Ability to breakdown complex problems into discrete small projects
• Ability to scope projects in small and achievable buckets.
• Ability to generate hypotheses and test them rapidly and transition if the hypotheses are rejected.
• Ability to prioritize on the vital few of a project and avoid ‘boiling the ocean.’
• Ability to grasp the essence of a project and tell an executive level story.
• Ability to oscillate between strategic messages to executives and tactical project team details.
• Mental agility- ability to flex and change course quickly, as situations change.

• Microsoft skills and Application skills

• Strong excel and power point skills.
• Ability to work in TEAMS, share files, and send out live links to files; maximize transparency.
• Ability to work in Smartsheet for workplans.

• Organization:  Time stewardship and meeting management
  • Ability to organize meetings and be a steward of project team time.
  • Create meeting agendas before the meeting.
  • Build prework and have team