Associate Director of Operations

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

The North American Logistics Operations (NALO) is based out of Plainfield, IN and is responsible for providing oversight and direction for all warehouse activities at the Plainfield (IN), Fresno (CA), and Enfield (CT) Distribution Centers as well a growing third party warehouse network while serving a diverse customer base, including US wholesalers, US sales representatives, LillyCares recipients, government and Alliance customers, and Eli Lilly Export.  NALO is also responsible for serving as the Center of Excellence (COE) for the United States and global logistics network. The position is responsible for ensuring safe work practices of operations employees; for ensuring that warehouse operations are conducted in a high quality, regulatory-compliant manner; for maintaining the security of people and products; for maintaining top-tier, continuously improving distribution performance and ensuring the reliable supply of medicines to customers; for meeting financial and productivity commitments; and for growing a talent pipeline.  To meet these commitments, the position requires a general understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and distribution, warehousing, regulatory, and sales practices.

Key Objectives/Deliverables

Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE)

• Ensure safe work practices of operations personnel.
• Ensure all potential injuries of operations personnel are reported immediately.
• Investigate/implement safety improvements.
• Ensure compliance with all HSE regulatory commitments.
• Drive step change improvements in HSE culture.

Quality / Compliance

• Ensure all warehouse activities are compliant with Quality regulatory commitments.
• Ensure appropriate investigation of operational deviations and drive implementation of appropriate countermeasures when needed in a timely manner.
• Ensure GMP quality plan items are implemented appropriately.
• Ensure inventory reconciliations of Special Security Substances and Controlled Drugs are completed as required.
• Coordinate the development, maintenance, and optimization of operational procedures.  
• Coordinate with Learning & Development to ensure appropriate training curricula are developed / maintained for operations personnel and that personnel are appropriately trained to perform job tasks at all times.
• Ensure facilities and equipment are maintained in a cGMP manner and interface with appropriate functions to ensure appropriate support.
• Responsible for ensuring data integrity and good documentation practices while performing job tasks.
• Lead and support step change improvement in Quality risk profile and human error reduction.

Security

• Ensure facility security is adequate to protect people and products.
• Ensure that security rules are followed by personnel.

Supply top tier, continuously improving distribution performance

• Ensure sufficient capacity (space, people, and equipment) exists for current and future volumes.
• Develop, maintain and enhance sustainable and meaningful metrics to demonstrate performance and capability, to include capacity, throughput, cycle times, safety incident rates, productivity, turnover and others as needed.
• Investigate efficiency opportunities associated with process flow and resource utilization.  Champion Lean principles and drive full behavioral adoption, including operator-led 5S standards of excellence.
• Identify opportunities for innovation and partner with key stakeholders to drive improvements and build competitive advantage across the network.
• Ensure customer service goals / commitment levels are met and that the right product gets to the right patient at the right time.
• Identify and implement transformational step changes when appropriate to complement the incremental continuous improvements, reset the facility/technology life cycle, and advance the scale and competitive performance of the sites

Financial Acumen

• Develop annual budget and 5 year strategic plan with goal of optimizing operational performance and growing talent pipeline; ensure budget commitments are met.
• Collaborate with site leadership to prioritize key initiatives