Senior Operational Excellence Manager

Senior Operational Excellence Manager: Drive Continuous Improvement in the Food Manufacturing Sector

This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned professional to take on a pivotal role as a Senior Operational Excellence Manager at Bakkavor, a leading force in the UK's fresh prepared food industry. If you thrive on tackling challenges, embrace change, and are passionate about optimising operational efficiency, this role offers a platform to make a significant impact.

Bakkavor is renowned for its innovation and dedication to quality, supplying a wide array of fresh food products to major grocery retailers. The Spalding site, a key hub within their extensive network, specialises in crafting popular items like sandwich wraps, salads, dips, soups, sauces, and mayonnaise. This role is central to driving the site's continuous improvement agenda and shaping its manufacturing future.

Key Advantages for Candidates:

• Strategic Impact: You will be instrumental in developing and implementing the site's overarching Continuous Improvement (CI) strategy, directly influencing operational performance and the "Factory of the Future" vision.
• Career Development: Bakkavor emphasizes providing a career with options. This role offers excellent prospects for growth and the chance to build a rewarding career within a large, established organisation.
• Comprehensive Benefits Package: The role comes with a competitive salary (£70,000 - £80,000 p/a), a substantial bonus potential of up to 20%, and a generous £8,400 p/a car allowance. Added to this is private healthcare, a stakeholder pension scheme, and a wealth of other wellbeing and voluntary benefits designed to support your holistic needs.
• Involvement in Key Projects: You'll lead and coordinate critical improvement projects across all organisational levels, focusing on waste reduction and capability enhancement aligned with growth plans.
• Deployment of Best Practices: This position involves shaping and deploying the Bakkavor Operating System, including its Management Control & Reporting Structure (MCRS) and the Redzone Productivity Module, providing exposure to sophisticated operational methodologies.
• Focus on Culture: A significant aspect of the role is fostering a robust CI culture across the site, working collaboratively with leadership and teams to embed continuous improvement behaviours.
• Data-Driven Environment: Opportunity to leverage your expertise as a Tableau expert for KPI data evaluation, developing reporting mechanisms to analyse performance and identify improvement opportunities.

Key Considerations for Your Career Path:

• Site-Based Role: This is a site-based position in Spalding, Lincs, requiring a consistent on-site presence to effectively engage with teams and oversee operational initiatives.
• Food Manufacturing Experience: While experience in operational roles is essential, specific experience within the food manufacturing industry, ideally chilled food, will be highly advantageous.
• Lean and Six Sigma Foundation: A minimum foundation level in lean principles or equivalent, along with Six Sigma (ideally yellow belt), is a prerequisite. This role will allow you to further hone and apply these skills.
• Change Leadership: The ability to lead change projects, influence stakeholders at all levels, and build strong, credible working relationships across diverse functions (Planning, Engineering, Technical, etc.) is crucial for success.
• Problem-Solving Acumen: You'll be expected to possess and apply advanced problem-solving capabilities, facilitating structured events to tackle complex operational challenges.
• Structured Approach: The role demands a methodical approach to developing and delivering annual plans, ensuring robust financial governance for projects to be completed on time and within budget.

This Senior Operational Excellence Manager role presents a compelling opportunity for an experienced professional to contribute significantly to a market-leading company. If you are driven by results, passionate about operational improvement, and ready to take on a challenging yet rewarding position, we encourage you to explore this exciting prospect.