The Continuous Improvement Practitioner will play a key role in building and communicating the Lean Roadmap across the company and lead Cirrus employees along the Lean journey in an effort toward achieving company goals that enhance value and experience in the eyes of our customers. This position will be responsible for driving continuous improvement efforts by developing and deploying best practice tools, methods and processes that reduce waste, promote data-driven decision making, and robust problem solving. This role will ensure we’re developing the Lean culture and building the capabilities of our people to support the growth and evolution of our fast-growing business.

Duties and Responsibilities/Essential Functions

• Coach and champion teams, managers and members through the process of leading, defining and developing continuous improvement activities that are designed to support key facility initiatives and drive results.
• Execute corporate strategy to establish Lean awareness and build team member commitment to Lean principles across the organization.
• Leader and facilitator of Kaizen events (Rapid Improvement Events). Trains Kaizen team leaders to facilitate events across the corporation.
• Dynamic facilitation of Lean training curriculum that integrates real-world, business-specific situations in order to drive continuous improvement with sustainable results.
• Manage highly complex projects spanning multiple functional departments.
• Ability to influence all levels within the organization.
• Perform and manage complex analysis to determine process improvement opportunities, evaluate alternatives, and prioritize redesign efforts.
• Design and develop toolkits and processes to help leaders better manage their business.
• Partner and coach process SME’s and leaders to identify areas of opportunities, develop new processes and deployment, training and support optimized processes.
• Challenge stakeholders to maximize opportunities from process improvement initiatives.
• Operate with independence and objectivity while leading efforts to develop and implement Process Improvements, Change Management and standardization of business processes.
• Support cross-functional teams in developing standard work, training programs and metrics to support business and system changes.
• Plan, support and provide training to others in the CI methodology.
• Provide leadership in problem-solving efforts on key projects to improve quality, reduce cost and improve cycle time.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Engineering or related field; or equivalent in experience and training
• Minimum of five years related experience deploying Lean theories
• Demonstrated leadership of Kaizen events
• Lean Practitioner or equivalent certification
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong decision-making and conflict resolution skills.
• Ability to lead and develop a diverse team of people.
• Passion for driving business improvement and leading change in a dynamic, fast paced, low volume setting
• Proven track record for developing, training, and coaching employees in a continuous improvement environment

Other Duties:

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. Overtime hours may be required.

This opportunity is located in Duluth, Minnesota. As the home to our corporate headquarters, Duluth is a four-season city on the western tip of Lake Superior and was voted “Best Town” by Outside Magazine. The splendor of the largest freshwater lake in the world offers a multitude of outdoor activities for adventure or rejuvenation. The North Shore lifestyle is known its year-round activities, including bicycle and snowmobile trails, kayaking, rock climbing, fishing, hiking, golfing, sailing and skiing. And as a top employer in the area, Cirrus Aircraft was recently named “Best Overall Large Company to Work for in the Northland” and “Best Workplace Culture” by the Duluth News Tribune readers.

Cirrus is dedicated to a drug free work environment promoting equal employment opportunity. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, national origin, color, age, disability, religion, pregnancy, veteran status, marital and family status, sexual orientation, receipt of public assistance, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.