Job Description

Oil-Dri Corporation of America is a leading manufacturer and supplier of specialty sorbent products for consumer and business-to-business markets that has been voted as a Top 100 workplaces in the Chicago Tribune. Oil-Dri’s products are sold in the pet care, animal health, fluids purification, agricultural, sports field, industrial and automotive markets. Oil-Dri controls millions of tons of specialty mineral reserves, including calcium bentonite, attapulgite, and diatomaceous shale. The company’s mines and manufacturing facilities are located in Georgia, Mississippi, Illinois, and California. Oil-Dri is a family-controlled and operated organization that emphasizes honesty, integrity, and accountability. The company is dedicated to fulfilling its mission to Create Value From Sorbent Minerals.

Job Summary

• Support Oil-Dri Corporation of America (ODCA) strategic Mission, Vision and the WE CARE values through the development and implementation of improvement initiatives aligned with ODCA’s business goals.
• Utilize Continuous Improvement & Process Engineering principles and Data Analysis to reach and maintain high manufacturing TEEP while optimizing operational processes. In all activities that products and services must meet customer requirements.

Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership, training, and coaching required to successfully implement operational and process improvements throughout the manufacturing organization.
• Provide management / vision to the Lean Improvement journey for assigned plants
• Provide updates to the Oil Dri leadership and stakeholders on the plan, progress, and requirements on the Lean journey.
• Play a lead role in overall Lean plan development.
• Coach (and mentoring) plants on Lean implementation including leadership activities, daily operations activities, operator maintenance and other loss/waste elimination processes and tools.
• Develop and own the key manufacturing data systems that are used to record operating information. With this data provide analysis and presentation formats that improve plant performance.

• Develop key Lean, operations, and process training documentation
• Utilize proven Lean, TPM, or Six-Sigma style analytical and problem-solving abilities to identify opportunities for cost reduction, quality improvement, process streamlining, lead-time reduction, inventory reduction, and similar type improvement areas.

• Utilize Process Engineering tools to evaluate manufacturing processes for the opportunity of improvement. Typical (but not exclusive) evaluations would include Heat Balances, Mass Balances, system efficiency studies, time studies and similar activities.
• Based upon the findings in the above areas develop and implement systems and/or projects to achieve the identified opportunity.
• Deploy and update (if required) a standardized set of manufacturing metrics to track improvements within a Plant. These are often data-based reviews and opportunity identification.
• Based upon studies, findings, and improvement activities establish “standards” for manufacturing lines within the ERP system.
• Set improvement opportunity parameters, assemble, and train teams (if a team-based improvement), and lead the teams through the improvement processes to ensure improvement objectives are met. Effectively utilize resources that are not directly under their control to achieve both individual and team goals.
• Optimize the plant floor layout, material flow, and change processes through implementation of engineering concepts.
• Perform and Teach Problem Solving for selected problems that are deemed to qualify for in-depth review using this tool.
• Generate Continuous Improvement related procedures and specifications to address identified needs discovered during the improvement work.
• Be an active member of the Continuous Improvement Team participating with others on common projects.
• Comply with all safety policies, practices, and procedures and act on all unsafe events.
• Participate in proactive team efforts to achieve departmental and company goals.
• Perform other such duties as may be required.

Qualifications:

• Experience with an ERP Manufacturing system

• Experience with data system used in manufacturing
• Experience with and an understanding of databases and how to leverage them for improvement
• Bachelor’s degree required, Industrial, Chemical, or Manufacturing Engineering field preferred
• Lean Bronze Certification required
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt required
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt required within 3 years of entering the role
• Minimum 10 years’ experience in a manufacturing environment with an emphasis on Lean, Six Sigma, Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering
• Knowledge in Process Industry and experience in a process manufacturing environment preferred.
• Experience in the use of Continuous Improvement concepts such as Kaizen, Value Stream Mapping, Lean, Total Productive Maintenance, Six Sigma and Similar Tools.
• Mathematical Skills, Strong Computer Skills and Reasoning Ability required.
• Possess core values of Honesty and Integrity.

Oil-Dri is committed to providing equal opportunity for all teammates and qualified candidates without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Accordingly, all employment decisions and personnel actions or programs such as hiring, promotion, discipline, compensation, benefits, transfers, reductions in workforce, and training, etc. will be consistent with the principle of equal employment opportunity.