Operations Process Improvement Specialist

About the role

The Operations Process Improvement Specialist analyzes the performance of Production and Maintenance processes and implements sustainable, data-driven improvements to enhance safety, quality, reliability, productivity and operational efficiency. The specialist acts as Operations' primary technical resource for continuous improvement, reliability and digital systems adoption, identifying opportunities, leading analyses and projects and validating results, while engineering design, specialized technical solutions and controls programming remain the responsibility of Engineering and Automation.

Key responsibilities

• Analyze production, maintenance, quality and cost data to identify trends, losses and improvement opportunities, and maintain dashboards and reports on indicators such as OE, downtime, MTBF, MTTR and productivity.
• Lead root cause analysis, FMEA, Pareto and criticality analyses, and TPM initiatives, and collaborate with Maintenance on preventive, predictive and inspection strategies.
• Lead Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, TPM and SMED initiatives to improve process stability, cycle times and asset utilization, and update procedures, standard work and training materials.
• Lead non-capital improvement projects from identification and justification through implementation, testing, training, change management and handover, and serve as the primary contact for Management of Change requests.
• Act as the primary Operations contact for new digital systems, gathering requirements, coordinating user testing and training, and supporting optimization of SAP, Power BI, Ignition, OEE/SPC and CMMS without handling programming or architecture.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Industrial, Mechanical, Electrical or Chemical Engineering, Manufacturing or Operations, or a technical associate degree in a related field.
• At least seven years of progressive experience in manufacturing, maintenance or continuous improvement, including at least two years leading data-driven, cross-functional projects.
• Three or more years in manufacturing, production, maintenance, reliability, process engineering or continuous improvement.
• Spanish and English proficiency sufficient to prepare reports and hold technical discussions.
• Preferred: Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification and experience in TPM, reliability or formal project management.

Required skills

• Data analysis, structured problem solving and project management.
• Knowledge of reliability principles, TPM, Lean/Six Sigma, GMP and applicable management systems.
• Analytical thinking, project leadership without direct authority, and executive and technical communication.