Main purpose of the role:
- Strategic direction: Drive operational excellence strategic decisions including continuous improvement implementation roadmap for Ambient Operations globally, and align resources to deliver key functional objectives in alignment with TU strategic goals.
- Continuous improvement initiatives: Jointly set (with plant heads) continuous improvement targets. Oversee and drive trial and execution of continuous improvement initiatives across Ambient Operations, including design of productivity roadmap and coordination across Production, Engineering & Maintenance, Quality, S&OP, R&D and Finance teams as required.
- Effective collaboration: Support integration of new technologies through collaboration with Production and Innovation & R&D teams. Oversee the coordination with Quality and Production teams to investigate and rectify recurring reliability and productivity issues and other technical problems.
- People and leadership: Improve and sustain employee engagement scores to be within the top quartile. Build capability and develop strong internal leadership pipeline, with focus on developing local talent.
Key accountabilities:
Set strategic direction
- Oversee planning, organization, budgeting, scheduling, and implementation of improvement roadmap that align with strategic direction
- Set Ambient Operational Excellence budget in coordination with Finance on budgeting and business case
Define standards and manuals
- Jointly set (with plant heads) BU and site-level production KPIs and targets
- Jointly set (with plant heads) production process standards, procedures, and guidelines to ensure consistent quality of products and at competitive costs
- Ensure compliance to standards across sites through productivity standard audits or otherwise (excl. Quality standard audit)
- Ensure best practices sharing across all Ambient Operations to deliver best-in-class operations performance; oversee maintenance of best practices library
- Develop and run training programs for production teams on best practices and continuous improvement methodologies as required
Best-in-class operations
- Guide and support analysis of data and KPI metrics to identify opportunities for improvement (including competitor analysis where required)
- Liaise with Plants to prioritize initiatives and activities for the each individual Plants to achieve productivity and/or cost objectives while ensuring efficient resource utilization
Continuous improvement initiatives
- Note: Continuous improvement activity involvement to be tailored based on scale and importance of project. Involvement could include Senior Director Ambient Operational Excellence, SWAT team or select Operational Excellence team members depending on scale and criticality
- Support design and implementation of foundational capabilities improvement / Strengthen Foundation initiatives across all Ambient plants, Ambient Quality, and Ambient Engineering & Maintenance; effectively coordinate with relevant stakeholders to drive accountability
- Lead design and implementation of Performance Acceleration agenda across Ambient Operations plants and functions in alignment with wider Ambient Operations strategy and objectives
- Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of improvement initiatives
- Deploy SWAT team / central Ambient Operational Excellence team and support short-term/ long-term continuous improvement initiatives and endorse the implementation through collaboration with Production, Engineering and Finance
- Oversee collaboration with Engineering / QA on correcting quality, reliability, productivity and other operational issues to prevent recurrence and further improve process control
- Oversee / guide incorporation of operational excellence best practices in priority new product development in collaboration with Innovation & R&D teams
- Ensure effectiveness of the change management process for new process rollouts
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement and best practices sharing across Ambient Operations
People and leadership
- Embody a strong culture of collaboration by fostering an environment of open communication and teamwork.
- Identify high potential talents within plants and Ambient Operational Excellence team; coach SWAT teams to fully leverage talent
- Drive to improve career development paths & performance mgmt. to enhance team motivation and retain quality talent
- Foster a culture of continuous learning and development to enhance employee skills and competencies
- Manage people budget for the department
Requirements:
- Strong knowledge and experience in production and manufacturing processes, and ability to establish and maintain production standards and guidelines.
- Experience in identifying and facilitating continuous improvement initiatives and implementing new technologies to improve manufacturing processes, equipment, and utilities.
- Strong project management skills to drive trial and execution of continuous improvement initiatives and collaborate with cross-functional teams for new product launches and production processes.
- Ability to develop and deliver training programs for production teams on best practices
- Excellent communication skills to effectively convey technical information to team members, stakeholders, and upper management.
- Strong leadership skills, including the ability to motivate and lead teams, build a diverse and trust-based leadership team, and develop local talent.
- Experience in fostering a culture of continuous learning and development to enhance employee skills and competencies.
- Strong interpersonal skills to foster a culture of collaboration and effectively drive cross-functional projects.
- Proficient in English.
Location: Onsite at the factory in Samut Sakhon, Thailand.
