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Continuous Improvement Sr. Engineering Lead
DuPont has an exciting and challenging opportunity for an Operational Excellence and Senior Engineering leader at the Spray Polyurethane Foam site located in Wilmington, Illinois. This site employs approximately 150 people and is about 60 miles southwest from downtown Chicago. This is the flagship site for production of GREAT STUFF™ and other spray foam construction materials. Our products are sold in “big box” stores and directly into construction distribution channels. DuPont’s Shelter Business continually creates novel solutions for improved energy efficiency in buildings today, while also addressing the industry's emerging needs and demands.
This role is suited for someone with a solid manufacturing and engineering background who is well-organized and a strong communicator with outstanding leadership attributes. The Continuous Improvement Engineering Leader is accountable for performance management, coaching and employee development of 5 direct reports (engineers and local experts in process control and reliability). This leader works closely with operations and plant staff displaying strong technical, leadership and team-building skills.
The position also has the added responsibility to plan, lead, and manage $1MM-3MM of annual spending in CapEx and other plant maintenance/engineering projects to achieve plant/business goals. They may also serve as the facility/manufacturing representative on large capital projects. The Continuous Improvement Engineering Leader is expected to exhibit very strong field presence, serving as an influential leader for everyone across the site.
Responsibilities
- Provides administrative leadership, coaching, and career development for direct reports.
- Demonstrates leadership with strong field presence and involvement in shop floor audits.
- Creates an environment that fosters team and individual empowerment throughout the organization.
- Recognizes personnel for both behavior and performance.
- Ensures implementation and effectiveness of work processes, operating discipline, management systems, enabling technologies, and roles.
- Leads the plant level improvement process by gathering and analyzing data, evaluating improvement opportunities, and implementing improvement projects to close performance gaps and increase manufacturing capability.
- Validates, consolidates, and prioritizes plant improvement opportunities and aligns them to the Business Technology Implementation Plan and Business objectives.
- Sets Site Reliability Strategy and drives implementation through cross-functional teams. Tracks progress, as needed, in global reporting tools.
- Implements improvement projects in reliability, process safety, and to improve plant performance.
- Works with the Run Plant Engineers and Reliability Specialist in collection and analysis of improvement project results data to validate the projects that deliver sustained performance objectives after implementation
- Promotes and champions Continuous Improvement/LEAN initiatives at the plant.
- Leverages DuPont subject matter experts as needed.
- Provides technical expertise on all matters of reliability engineering, assessment and monitoring for all process equipment (including mechanical, electrical and instrument / control equipment).
- Apply engineering theory, practices, and principles to perform physical failure analysis, determine root cause of equipment failures and conduct equipment performance evaluations.
- Analyze equipment trends, historical data, and field data to recommend and justify improvements to obtain lowest life cycle cost for equipment, maximize production, and reduce process variation.
- Participate in reliability networks and share best practices, successes, and failures.
- Serve as MIQA Leader for the site PSM program.
- Participate in PSM activities as defined by site manuals and practices, mainly focused in mechanical integrity (MI) and quality assurance (QA)
- Interact with the Business Engineering Leaders, Manufacturing Technology organization, and Site Leader to create and successfully execute capital plan (typically $1MM-$3MM/yr).
- Work closely with the site, Manufacturing Technology organization, and CapEx resources to execute FEL engineering activities. Leads the team in identifying non-cap or more effective alternatives, following best practices, conducting risk analysis, and developing mitigating plans.
- Drive project execution and coach site team on application of the DuPont Global Project Execution Methodology (GPS) work process.
- Support capital projects by participating in setting equipment specifications to optimize reliability and life cycle cost. Provide technical support for QA/QC, installation, and start-up of all new critical equipment.
Functional Skills
- Excellent communication skills, organizational skills, influential leadership and interpersonal skills
- Experience in managing the deliverables needed to prepare project estimates and schedules
- Prior experience improving performance and capability
- A bias for execution, results-oriented, and demonstrated courage
- Conduct work activities in a manner consistent with DuPont Core Values.
- Certification or experience in Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)
- Basic understanding of the principles of:
- Maintenance & reliability best practices
- Rotating Equipment and alignment techniques
- Materials Science and physical failure analysis
- Power and electrical; Instrumentation and process control
- Predictive techniques for fixed and rotating equipment and instrumentation such as Vibration Analysis, Tribology, Non-Destructive Testing, Thermography, etc.
- Industry and Corporate Engineering codes and their application
- Cost/Capital analysis and justification
- Reliability engineering principles and design improvement techniques
- Lean Tools (VSM, Kaizen, A3, Poka-Yoke)
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or equivalent experience required.
- 5+ years of direct experience in a plant environment required.
- Experience with Capital Project Execution of at least $500,000 USD, including Management of Change processes, is preferred.
- Knowledge of Process Safety Management (PSM) requirements preferred.
- Experience with SAP-PM is preferred.
- CMRP Certification preferred.
- Vibration Certification (Category 2) preferred.
- Experience with digital control systems (DCS), PLCs, and industrial automation technologies is preferred.
- Strong leadership skills, ability to plan, prioritize and manage multiple tasks in a changing environment to meet challenging business needs.
- Ability to champion change in a manufacturing environment
- Ability to focus on big picture, but capability to deal with details when needed.
- Strong Interpersonal and Conflict Resolution Skills with the ability to influence managers and peers; able to take a “hands-on” approach with operators and mechanics to get things done.
- Strong Analytical and Problem-solving skills
- Ability to interact with and promote a diverse workforce (team builder)
- Proven strong contributor with the capability to work independently.
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