Position Overview:The Director of Global Continuous Improvement is accountable for developing, deploying, and sustaining the Nelson Excellence System across global operations. The role converts continuous improvement from isolated activities into a consistent operating capability that improves safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, inventory, capacity, and customer performance while building internal leadership capability.
Primary Responsibilities & Duties:Global Operating-System Ownership
- Develop, maintain, and govern the Nelson Excellence System, including standards, playbooks, deployment requirements, audit methods, and management routines
Operating Profile Deployment
- Classify plants, lines, value streams, and products by operating profile and establish the appropriate flow, daily-management approach, and performance measures for each profile
Strategy & Roadmap Execution
- Create and execute a multi-year global CI roadmap with sequenced deployment waves, pilot locations, regional ownership, milestones, resources, and executive decision points
Value Creation
- Build and manage a prioritized global improvement portfolio tied to productivity, margin, quality, on-time delivery, inventory and cash, OEE, setup reduction, throughput, capacity, and cost of poor quality
Daily Management & Governance
- Standardize tiered meetings, visual management, KPI definitions, escalation, countermeasure follow-up, plant and regional reviews, and executive reporting
Benefit Validation
- Partner with Finance to define baselines, validate forecast and realized benefits, track timing, distinguish hard and soft savings, and confirm sustainability
Capability Development
- Create role-based learning, coaching, certification, and leader-standard-work methods that develop plant, regional, and functional leaders through live improvement work
Regional & Site Leadership
- Coach regional CI leaders, plant managers, functional leaders, and site CI resources; clarify ownership and ensure local adoption without losing global standards
Best-Practice Replication
- Capture proven improvements, convert them into reusable standards, and accelerate transfer across similar plants, product families, and operating profiles
Transformation & Integration
- Apply the operating-system playbook to plant stabilization, major launches, business transfers, network optimization, and acquisition integration
External Partner Management
- Select and manage outside CI or operational-excellence resources when needed, with clear deliverables, knowledge transfer, and transition of ownership to Nelson teams
Cross-Functional Improvement
- Extend CI methods beyond operations into appropriate business processes in engineering, quality, supply chain, commercial, HR, Finance, and IT
Culture & Recognition
- Promote employee engagement, practical problem solving, recognition of measurable results, and a culture in which teams improve the standard every day
Safety & Compliance
- Ensure improvement activities support safe work, legal and regulatory obligations, ethical conduct, and applicable Nelson Global policies
Key Outcomes & Measures of Success:- Global CI charter, governance model, standards, and deployment roadmap approved and active
- Plants and priority value streams classified by operating profile with defined flows, KPIs, and ownership
- Common daily-management routines and dashboards operating from line and business-unit level through plant, region, and executive review
- Finance-validated project funnel and realized benefits delivered against annual operating and value-creation plans
- Improvement in relevant safety, quality, delivery, cost, productivity, OEE, setup, lead-time, inventory, and capacity measures
- Qualified internal CI leaders and project leaders developed through applied learning and certification.
- Proven improvements replicated across comparable sites, with sustained results after handoff
- Reduced reliance on outside resources as Nelson capability, standards, and ownership mature
Required Education & Experience: - Bachelor's degree in engineering, operations, business, supply chain, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
- Progressive leadership experience in continuous improvement, operational excellence, manufacturing engineering, operations, or plant transformation in a multi-site manufacturing environment
- Demonstrated success deploying and sustaining an operating system or CI management system across multiple facilities, regions, or business units.
- Practical expertise in Lean systems, daily management, value-stream design, standard work, structured problem solving, visual management, setup reduction, OEE, flow, and inventory improvement
- Ability to translate operational improvement into financial impact and partner effectively with Finance on benefit validation
- Experience leading through influence across senior leaders, plant managers, functional teams, and frontline operations
- Strong written, verbal, facilitation, coaching, data-analysis, and executive-presentation skills.
- Ability to work effectively across cultures, time zones, and varying levels of operational maturity
- Willingness and ability to travel regularly to manufacturing locations globally
Preferred Education & Experience:- Master's degree in engineering, operations, or business
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Shingo, Toyota Production System, or comparable advanced CI credentials
- Experience in fabricated metal products, tubing, welding, assembly, high-mix manufacturing, shared capacity centers, or complex global supply networks
- Experience with acquisition integration, plant turnaround, network optimization, or major product and process transfers
- Experience selecting and managing external operational-excellence partners with explicit knowledge-transfer requirements
- Working knowledge of digital performance management, ERP, Power BI or comparable analytics tools, and project portfolio systems
- Additional language capability relevant to Nelson Global operations
Work Environment & Physical Requirements:- Combination of office, remote, and manufacturing-plant environments
- Frequent presence on the manufacturing floor, including walking through production areas and observing equipment and work processes
- Use of required personal protective equipment and compliance with site safety rules
- Ability to travel by air and ground, including international travel and multi-day site visits
- Ability to work across global time zones as business needs require
