Continuous Improvement Manager

Pixelle Specialty Solutions™ is the largest specialty paper company in North America, with fully integrated pulp and paper operations in Chillicothe, Ohio, Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, Stevens Point, Wisconsin and a coating operation in Fremont, Ohio. Supported by an experienced product development team, Pixelle excels in designing customized solutions that help customers bring new products to market. With a long history of leadership in the paper industry, Pixelle delivers the most comprehensive portfolio of specialty papers to help you meet today’s challenging demands.

Through innovation, quality, and expertise, Pixelle delivers high performance solutions that help customers boost brand appeal, improve customer experience and support sustainability goals.

The Chillicothe Mill is located in beautiful southern Ohio, a short drive south of the state capital Columbus.  Operating three paper machines, this historic mill is a cornerstone of Pixelle’s operations offering excellent opportunity to the right individual to make a difference to the operations and community.

Role

The Continuous Improvement Manager (internally reference as Mill Improvement Program (MIP) Manager) will work with tactical stakeholders at the facility level to set process improvement strategies aligned with overall business objectives to improve EBITDA.  This role will work collaboratively across functional areas to address business needs and issues, develop improvement plans and gain commitment from key stakeholders while monitoring critical performance metrics.  This position will both lead/facilitate improvement items plus coach and build others who are leading.

 Key Accountabilities:

• Take a leadership role in establishing a safe workplace by creating a culture of accountability for oneself and others.
• Partner with key business stakeholders and process champions to analyze current processes to determine improvement needs and priority ensuring continuous improvement projects are aligned with the business needs while scoped appropriately.
• Assist teams in brainstorming, process analysis, charter writing, metric definitions, and all aspects needed for a successful Continuous Improvement program.
• Coach, mentor, and coordinate activities of continuous improvement project leaders.
• Use benchmarking (R-gap) to understand realizable opportunity gaps and closure plans.
• Work with the MIP managers at other Pixelle sites / team members to adopt shared best practices, which improve business processes.
• Work collaboratively with finance and key business stakeholders to implement a financial evaluation system to measure year over year financial improvement of key metrics and continuous improvement initiatives.  Manage the MIP project tracking system.
• Develop and train the organization in diverse problem-solving methods including statistical analysis, Minitab, six sigma, DMAIC, and lean tools to improve efficiency and reduce cost while providing a consistent approach throughout the organization.
• Leverage employee engagement to insure all employees have an opportunity to contribute to continuous improvement.
• Work with functional leadership (Finance, HR, IT, etc.) on strategic and tactical initiatives where MIP requires collaboration and/or support.
• Provide subject matter recommendations to operational issues, leveraging previous experience or expertise.
• Organize information for divisional and executive leadership communication deployment.
• Prepare facility for transformational manufacturing practices

• More than five (5) years’ experience in a technical or operational role in a large manufacturing environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering with advanced technical or business degree (MBA, MS in engineering, MA in finance) or valid experience if no advanced degree.
• Must be a US citizen or hold a Green Card
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification preferred; exposure to lean methods and/or six-sigma in an industrial environment.  Familiar and practical experience with statistical methodology.
• Extensive experience with MS Office and MiniTab, especially Excel and PowerPoint for business analysis and communication.
• Previous management experience leading a Continuous Improvement (CI) department or program is a plus.
• Demonstrated success with assessing performance, identifying improvement opportunities, and building strategic improvement plans and management processes.
• Experience directing multiple concurrent initiatives and influencing senior leadership decisions and action.
• Travel requirement = 10%; will be required to travel to other Pixelle sites.
• Work nights and weekends as necessary.  Provide routine weekend mill coverage support (currently 1 in 8).

Competitive healthcare benefit package and 401K match.