Operational Excellence Manager (OpEx Manager)

Operational Excellence Manager

We have an exciting opportunity for an Operational Excellence Manager to join our team in Nottingham.

At The Compleat Food Group we’re not just serving up great food, we’re creating an environment where our people can thrive. As one of the leading chilled prepared food manufacturers in the UK food industry, we believe that our employees are the secret ingredient to our success. We’re passionate about fostering a culture where quality, innovation, collaboration and personal growth are at the forefront. 

Location: Nottingham

Working Hours: Monday – Thursday: 8:30am – 5pm & Friday: 8:30am – 4pm

Salary: £60,000 per annum

Job Purpose

This role will drive the identification and quantification of the improvement agenda in partnership with the site leadership team, ensuring maximum focus and return on key strategic challenges. Acting as a leading change agent within the business, the successful candidate will identify and close gaps in operational efficiency, capacity utilisation, wastage, quality, and safety against agreed targets.

A key part of this role will be to embed an Operational Excellence culture across the site by coaching, facilitating, and developing the capability of colleagues at all levels, supporting the delivery of ongoing OpEx initiatives. In addition, the role will manage projects from concept through to handover, ensuring they are delivered on time, within budget, and to specification, while upholding the highest standards of safety and quality compliance.

Key Duties & Responsibilities:

• Lead the diagnostic cycle to define the annual ‘bottom up’ Operational Excellence budget
• To collaborate with manufacturing colleagues to identify improvement opportunities, utilising data analysis, process observations and industry best practices and implementing flight plans to delivery. 
• Provide analytic support to enable an understanding of Current state, baseline performance and capture existing issues.
• Implement principles of project governance and administration, including reporting on progress to plan and reporting of benefits delivery
• Collaboratively support and lead multi skilled/cross functional teams
• Use industry knowledge, product and equipment knowledge, project management experience and relationships across the organisation to enable successful delivery of complex/challenging projects.
• Collate data and present in an understandable format to be able to deliver required change
• Coaching and developing of Compleat Food colleagues from management to shop floor
• Develop and upskill colleagues in lean manufacturing principles, tools and techniques
• Facilitate, coach and support the effective deployment of a tiered Performance Management system at site level
• Responsible for delivering site strategic goals both directly and indirectly through others (via good prioritisation of initiatives and alignment/coordination of resource)
• Involvement and input to the wider OE Group Strategy
• Line management of one or more OE Co-ordinators

Areas of data collection and management:

• Owner of the site annual OE plan including diagnostics and delivery
• Process Confirmation of new initiatives ensuring traction and delivery
• Baselining of projects and tracking of impact
• Collection of line and factory performance data through online systems and shopfloor studies
• Definition, development and communication of new KPIs to support site performance improvements

Qualifications & Education:

• Formal qualification in an OpEx methodology such as but not limited to Lean Six sigma, Lean, TPS
• Bachelor’s degree or qualification in a vocational or specialised field short of a degree level (HNC/HND) or Apprenticeship

Experience & Proven ability:

• Minimum 5 years of work experience, preferably in manufacturing environments
• Proven experience of implementing and leading teams in delivery of continuous improvement projects and embedding an OpEx culture with quantifiable business impact
• Experience of coaching, developing, facilitating and leading teams
• Strong financial acumen including the ability to accurately value the monetary impact of initiatives

Technical Skills:

• Formal Lean/Lean Six sigma, Continuous Improvement/ OpEx methodology knowledge
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills, with the ability to analyse complex data and communicate findings
• Resilience and perseverance to establish an OpEx culture
• Experience of seeking and identifying cost opportunities, improving efficiencies, improving safety and quality capability, generating innovative/creative solutions
• Proven leadership skills and business acumen and the ability to work with different functions within the organisation.
• Integrity to handle sensitive topics and respect/value the contributions of others
• Strong analytical, logical and numerical competence
• Highly developed influencing, persuasion and negotiation skills
• Excellent IT skills

What's in it for you?

• Dynamic Environment: You will be working in a fast-paced, future-thinking agile company where your contributions make a real difference.
• Culture: Be part of a fantastic team that values diversity, innovation, collaboration and excellence.
• 2 Employee Volunteering Days per year
• 33 days Annual Leave Entitlement
• Online and High-street retailer discount scheme 
• Employee well-being and community support groups
• Informal and Formal training opportunities with personalised online LMS platform
• Charity Initiatives and Team events
• 24/7 Access to Grocery Aid (Free Financial, Emotional and Practical Support)
• Physical Wellbeing Benefits – Free on demand exercise hub and various gym discounts. 
• Online Wellbeing benefits 
• Free Financial wellbeing – mortgage calculators, budget tools, financial aid tools 

The Compleat Food Group fosters an inclusive, respectful culture where everyone feels safe, supported, and valued. We welcome diverse talent, knowing it drives exceptional results and a better workplace.

We are committed to Fairness, Equity, Inclusivity, and Respect, we ensure all colleagues can thrive by bringing their whole selves to work. As an equal opportunity’s employer, we provide all the support you need to succeed.

Contact us with any questions about Diversity & Inclusion or accessibility during the application process.

Recruitment Agencies: 

We have a small, active and trusted Preferred Supplier List to assist us if required. We do not acknowledge any speculative CVs or unsolicited candidate introductions. We only accept CV submissions for roles released to you directly by our Talent Acquisition team.