Continuous Improvement Manager

The Body Art Alliance (BAA) is at the forefront of innovation, creating the tools and products to better serve our artists. From the first truly wireless tattoo machine, to the groundbreaking novel tattoo parlor on a cruise ship, BAA has cultivated the industry and been the “first of many.” We are dreamers, artists, creatives, innovators and pioneers, driven to propel the body art community across the world.

We’re here to elevate, empower and take our industry to the next level. Our family of brands will continue to be led by their day one founders and continue to create and oversee our innovative product lines. While we are better united, our brands will always have that special touch that makes them unique. Our new partnership will allow us to create, design and manufacture products, create best-in-class educational content that transcends, and have a direct social impact in the communities we serve.

The Body Art Alliance welcomes you home! Discover all that we offer and join our winning team.

Let's Talk About the Role!

The Continuous Improvement (CI) Manager works with Site Leadership by leading continuous improvement activities. Reviews operations and provides solutions to resolve safety/ergonomic, quality, cost, and throughput issues. Verifies standard work procedures are being followed exactly (steps and time) and corrects issues with standard work.

The CI Manager will be responsible for the successful identification, development, and execution of projects to drive improvement in process metrics, targeted financial benefits, and achieve company goals. This includes identifying manufacturing needs, defining scope, measuring and reporting progress on all active projects. In addition, the CI Manager will be responsible for training and educating associates, and teams, on innovative thinking and questioning of established practices. This person must also be a hands-on, proactive leader who works under the guidance of Operations Leadership.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leading and facilitating improvement teams across the business – often multiple teams at one time
• Responsible for the successful development and execution of specific OPEX/Lean Manufacturing projects, such as: internal and external Kanban, TPM, SMED, one-piece flow production, constraint management, and workplace organization
• Responsible for establishing teams as well as training and educating members on lean processes such as OEE, TPM, SMED, 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Continuous Flow, JIT, Kanban as well as facilitate and drive business level administrative projects
• Responsible for systematic and thorough documentation of all projects, in order to share ideas across the network as well as working with finance to establish project values
• Responsible for project management and administration to include project direction, implementation, cost/benefit analysis, scheduling and resource allocation
• Responsible for all communications related to the projects (including the development of format, frequency, material and audience)
• Defines projects in regard to customer requirements utilizing tools such as: Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA), process flow mapping, control plan documentation and Capability Analysis.
• Reviews, measures and proactively studies KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in an effort to prevent substandard product that does not meet customer specifications.
• Works with Sales, Marketing and Operations team to find solutions to customer complaints focusing on permanent corrective action.
• Establish and maintain monthly progress reviews in accordance with site leadership requirements
• Ensure consistent application of company policies and procedures
• Effectively work cross functionally across all departments to attain improvement objectives
• Working with the leadership from sites as well as the corporate headquarters to share best practices across the business
• Developing processes and systems to ensure sustainability of improvements
• Leading teams through events (Kaizen) and helping with justification
• Tracking and reporting team progress teaching teams how to use the metrics
• Assisting in the development of future state value streams and helping teams prioritize the tasks that need to be accomplished
• Becoming the “go to person” for all improvement teams and providing support where needed
• Performs other duties as assigned

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering, preferably Mechanical, Electrical or Industrial Engineering
• Minimum of 10 years of experience manufacturing and distribution environments with a process and product improvement focus or Operations Leadership in a low/med volume production environment with a minimum of 5 years in a Continuous Improvement role.
• Certification in Lean manufacturing preferred
• In depth knowledge of formalized lean manufacturing practices and tools applied in operations as well as administrative environments
• Six Sigma certification – Black Belt preferred
• Strong Project Management and execution skills
• Intermediate or greater Excel, Powerpoint skills

Competencies:

• Excellent communication Skills
• Structured and organized
• Strong team player / ability to build collaborative relationships
• Strong analytical, computational, and problem solving skills
• Accurate and thorough
• Business acumen

Location: Hanover, MD

Travel Requirement: 50% Travel