Operational Excellence Manager

Step 4

A bit about the role

This is a rare opportunity to join an exciting high-growth manufacturing business, Butternut Box. The Operational Excellence (OpEx) Manager will be part of the site leadership team and will report into the Site Director. The OpEx Manager will play key part in ensuring the Manufacturing, Fulfilment and Warehouse Operations are continuously improving, scaling and delivering Excellence to our customers everyday.

Rudies Kitchen and Ace’s Pantry are state-of-the-art purpose built facilities and will demand a good working knowledge of the FMCG Industry and in particular (but not essential) Food Manufacturing. Having a good working proficiency in Lean Methodologies and a proven track record of delivering improvement projects both as an individual and vicariously through teams.

As an OpEx Manager you should be a team-player, a skilled communicator and be adept at business analysis and project implementation. You will assess, monitor and enhance business performance. In the role you will analyse current practices and develop process improvements, structures and teams to ensure continuous company performance.

The expectation would be that you would also support holiday and absence cover of our Shift Operations team in a Leadership capacity driving team engagement and growth during those periods. 

Operational Requirements:

• Expertise in a fast moving goods environment with a passion for continuous improvement and a site wide mentality which extends beyond production to all areas of the business.
• Be accountable for and drive the Site Improvement Agenda, achieving site objectives through the implementation of key activities; ensure team members have a clear understanding and are provided with the necessary resources to deliver against these
• Coach and support squad members to drive operational excellence within our Kitchen, always striving to reduce bottle necks today and for the future to enable us to feed happy and healthy dogs!
• Analyse daily and weekly KPI’s, identifying opportunities to meet the future goals from a production, Health & Safety, people and engineering priorities working in partnership with operational managers and functional areas. 
• Promote a continuous improvement environment, identify constraints or bottlenecks and pull a team together to identify and resolve the issue and partner with your counterparts to drive the solution.

Our Culture & Values:

• Be a culture carrier, leading by example and proactively upholding the Butternut Box values in everything you do! 
• Develop a highly motivated and inclusive team while adopting an open, visible, and supportive style.
• Ensure the site always operates at 'audit ready' standards and promote a proactive quality culture within the team.
• Ensure team members have a clear understanding of our company and team goals and their part in helping to achieve this.

Communication & Partnership:

• Partner with the Site Leadership Team functional experts to achieve the best possible and aligned outputs and improvements.
• Work collaboratively with a cross functional team, including but not limited to, Finance, Procurement, People, Technical and Engineering.
• Messages and key communications are delivered to the teams and key stakeholders in a timely and accurate manner with careful preparation, documentation and planning to take people on the journey and tell the story. 
• You’ll have an excellence awareness of how your communication style impacts on others and you’ll tailor this to your audience. 

A bit about you

• Loves dogs (naturally)
• Strong experience within the fast-moving consumer goods market (FMCG), preferably gained in the food industry within a team oriented culture
• Good working proficiency of continuous improvement concepts and practices.
• Understanding of Health and Safety best practice and current legislative requirements
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in a high-speed volume manufacturing environment 
• A history of Supervisory experience with broad working knowledge of relevant safety legislation
• Pragmatic, adaptable, resilient and humble
• Well-practised planning, organisation and scheduling skills
• Someone who loves the pace and excitement of FMCG manufacturing
• Ideally financial and budget control experience
• Hungry for a challenge and keen to build something from the ground up
• Easily approachable with good interpersonal skills, with creative thinking and analytical skills
• Results driven and action oriented
• Problem solving skills and priority setting

A bit about Butternut

At Butternut, the mission is to deliver health and happiness to dogs and their humans all over the world. In order to do just that, they need a team of forward-thinking, driven people who love dogs as much as they do. And they need quite a big kitchen too. Which is precisely why they have built one.

Located in Doncaster, Rudie's Kitchen & Ace’s Pantry will be the place where all the magic happens, so to speak. It's where the tasty Butternut meals are gently cooked, using human-quality ingredients because, the way they see it, they wouldn't serve food to dogs that they wouldn't be happy to eat themselves. At Butternut, they believe dogs deserve better, and if that's something you think too, we want to hear from you.

Butternut has come a long way since Kev & Dave (co-founders) hand-delivered the first Butternut Box, and they are now looking for brilliant people to join the team for this next part of the story.

Are you up for the challenge?

A bit about what we offer

• 257.5 hours of holiday per year (including bank holidays) plus an additional day for every year of service (up to a maximum of 5 days)
• 40 hours of paid “Paws days” for you to relax and focus on your health and well being
• £500 annual learning & development budget
• Discounted Private Medical Insurance with Vitality Health Care
• Subsidised food from a variety of street food vans and of course payday pizza!
• Employee discount on Butternut Box for your dog
• Free parking and electric car charging
• Cycle to work scheme
• Pension with NEST

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