Associate Director, Product Support & Operational Excellence

Help us change lives

At Exact Sciences, we’re helping change how the world prevents, detects and guides treatment for cancer. We give patients and clinicians the clarity needed to make confident decisions when they matter most. Join our team to find a purpose-driven career, an inclusive culture, and robust benefits to support your life while you’re working to help others.

Position Overview

The Associate Director, Product Support and Operational Excellence will lead multiple technical teams responsible for ensuring product availability and also manage and execute operational excellence initiatives within Operations and other groups, as needed.  This role will oversee complex technical issue resolution, process and product improvement, risk mitigation activities, and support new product introduction working closely with Technical Services, R&D, Quality, Regulatory, Clinical Laboratory and Operations teams to deliver on critical business objectives.  This role will also lead implementation of continuous improvement projects in operations and drive organizational change to enhance efficiency, productivity, and quality.     

Product Support Essential Duties

Include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Lead Managers of Product Support teams driving initiatives that align with business needs.

• Establish, implement, and/or improve enterprise-wide product support processes to ensure sustained delivery of high-quality reagents to clinical lab customers.

• Oversee activities related to troubleshooting of manufacturing processes and test methods for materials such as oligonucleotides, enzymes, antibodies, and molecular biology reagents used in complex molecular diagnostics products utilizing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and next generation sequencing (NGS)-based technologies.

• Manage and guide product support teams resolving Out of Specification events (OOS), non-conformances (NCMRs), and corrective action preventive action (CAPA) plans through root cause investigation, experiment design, study execution, data analysis, and reporting.

• Lead and support investigations into customer complaints in collaboration with Technical Services.

• Provide strategic and technical leadership in the evaluation of new sources of raw materials to reduce supply risk and achieve business profitability goals.

• Interact with vendors to resolve challenges with raw materials or established processes and/or develop new processes to implement with our strategic partners to improve reliability of incoming materials. This work is done in collaboration with internal stakeholders in Supply Chain and Quality Engineering.

• Prioritize a portfolio of support and improvement projects based on mid- and long-term business objectives, changing functional needs, resource capacity constraints, risk exposure, and ensuring clarity in project interdependencies.

• Oversee design and execution of complex studies and designed experiments using appropriate statistical techniques. 

• Provide thought leadership in design for manufacturability for future products and test methods in collaboration with R&D.

Operational Excellence Essential Duties:

• Plan, manage, and execute operational excellence programs and projects. 

• Identify opportunities for process improvements and lead continuous improvement initiatives within Operations and across the enterprise, as needed.

• Utilize methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, and Kaizen to drive efficiency and effectiveness.

• Train and mentor employees on continuous improvement tools and techniques.

• Develop and implement change management strategies to support the adoption of new processes and technologies.

• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the organization.

• Leverage Operational Excellence skills to address complex cross-functional initiatives or obstacles. 

Leadership and General Essential Duties:

• Oversee the leadership and management of multiple technical teams supporting several programs or technology areas to identify problems and improve processes.

• Mentor and develop next level managers and leaders to continue to grow talent within our organization.

• Remove barriers and obstacles encountered by teams to enable timely and on-budget completion of programs and projects. 

• Establish annual operating plans and budgets for product support teams. 

• Establish and align group goals with the organization’s broader strategic objectives.  Hold teams accountable to business and department objectives. 

• Collaborate with senior