Continuous Improvement Manager

AAF International offers the most comprehensive clean air solutions available across the globe. Selling under the American Air Filter® and the AAF International® brand names, AAF International has been an industry pioneer since 1921 and has since grown to operations in over 22 countries with over 3000 employees. Our products are the industry benchmarks for quality and performance, and delivers clean air solutions in residential, commercial and industrial air pollution control, gas containment removal, power generation, and other stringent clean room environments.

We are a member of the Daikin Group, the world's largest air conditioning and clean air solutions provider with over $15 Billion in sales and 56,000 employees worldwide. Founded in 1924, Daikin has grown into a diversified industrial manufacturing company offering solutions in clean, air, air conditioning, refrigeration, chemicals, oil hydraulics, defense systems and electronics. AAF and Daikin are powered by our investment in people, products, and our processes.

Our culture of continuous improvement, safety, and world class operations is powered by our people centered management philosophy. This philosophy is built around mutual selection: that while AAF seeks top talent people to join and deliver on our team, we also want each team member to receive job satisfaction, growth & development, and continued happiness in being a long term member of the AAF family. This is fueled by our belief in treating our people, our supply partners, our customers and our environment with the trust and respect we each require, and our passion to give back to our community for our success.

Read more about our philosophy at: http://www.daikin.com/about/corporate/philosophy/index.html

AAF International is an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/Disability/Veteran.

Position Objective:

The Continuous Improvement Manager is responsible for identifying key improvement opportunities for the AAF Flanders facility in Duluth by identifying outdated and inefficient processes and policies while maintaining a focus on future state in all of our manufacturing value streams.

Key Accountabilities:

• Facilitate Kaizen events focused on specific areas of improvement while acting as a change agent towards the site’s future state.
• Develop a manufacturing map of current and future state value streams (from procurement to order fulfillment).
• Support the development of the future state layout.
• Assist with improving the daily management process, including metrics and communication methods (Gemba boards, etc).
• Lead the implementation of 5S and visual management initiatives throughout the facility.
• Act as a change agent to drive Kaizen transformational activities throughout the plant.
• Champion employee engagement.
• Enhance employee’s skill level to empower problem solving and improve processes.
• Use principles from MLFC for completing Kaizen while developing employees.
• Use SQDC and PDCA to track and measure Kaizen progress.
• Continuously develop the Fiscal Year calendars / Kaizen roadmaps.
• Lock in 90-day schedules for all Kaizen events.
• Lead and support identification and application of best practices and operating standards.
• Support strategy development and deployment for strategic business priorities.
• Any other duties deemed necessary by the Plant Manager and the Continuous Improvement Director.

Position Requirements:

1. In-depth knowledge of manufacturing processes, mechanics of plant equipment, and advanced computer skills (MS Office, BPCS, SAP);
2. In-depth knowledge of Kaizen;
3. 5-10+ years manufacturing experience.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, veteran status, uniform servicemember status, age, disability or any other legally recognized protected personal characteristics.