Thermo Fisher Scientific
Senior Lean/PPI Manager
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Work Schedule
Standard (Mon-Fri)
Environmental Conditions
Office
As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.
Role Purpose
Thermo Fisher Scientific is seeking a Senior Lean/Practical Process Improvement Manager to join the Corporate PPI Team, reporting to the Director, Corporate PPI. This role will help accelerate the next phase of Practical Process Improvement, our continuous improvement system, across our global operations network.
The Corporate PPI Team is expanding its focus from Delivery to embedding the widespread practical mastery of the PPI Business System, to support customer allegiance, quality, efficiency and sustainable productivity.
This role will focus on two core deliverables:
- Lean Diagnostics / Automation Assessment Develop and deploy a practical, Lean-focused assessment to support Digital Operations and Automation. The assessment will help identify and remove barriers, accelerate automation readiness, and support the journey toward smart factories.
- Leakage Reduction Playbook Develop and deploy a structured playbook to address the underlying defects, delays and disconnects that surface as financial leakage. The playbook will help reduce waste, improve net productivity and strengthen sustainable business performance.
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Key Responsibilities
- Partner with the Corporate PPI Team to design, develop and deploy the Lean Diagnostics / Automation Assessment. Explore ways to utilise AI to simplify, reduce workload and speed up the process.
- Support/lead site-based assessments, including cost assessments, value stream mapping, SME interviews, Lean mapping, deep dives, IT and systems mapping, Lean / digital / automation heatmaps, prioritisation, ROI review, business case development and site roadmap creation. Depending on the capability of the site, additional support may be required to help jumpstart execution.
- Partner with the Corporate PPI Team to develop a practical, step-by-step Leakage Reduction Playbook covering cost diagnostics, good-cost versus bad-cost assessment, savings opportunity identification, prioritisation, implementation tracking and governance. Explore ways to utilise AI to simplify, reduce workload and speed up the process.
- Partner across site, finance, operations, procurement and functional leadership teams to pilot, refine and deploy the playbook across selected teams and sites.
- During the pilots record and manage the pipeline of cost-reduction and waste-elimination opportunities, quantifying financial impact and defining clear owners, timelines and governance routines.
- Post pilot – work with team to create clear templates, training materials and adoption support to enable consistent deployment and long-term use
- With support from the team embed the playbook into the PPI Business System, establishing standard routines and handover processes.
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Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree plus at least 8 years of experience in Lean transformation, operational excellence, manufacturing leadership or continuous improvement across multi-site operations. Preferred fields of study include Engineering, Operations, Business, Supply Chain or a related discipline.
- Six Sigma Black Belt certification required.
- Robust financial acumen.
- Strong hands-on experience leading transformational Lean improvements in industrial, manufacturing or operations environments.
- Demonstrated ability to use data to map operational performance, identify constraints and bottlenecks, and translate findings into practical improvement roadmaps aligned with automation solutions.
- Credibility and influencing skills with senior operational leaders, site leadership teams and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Ability to operate effectively in a matrixed, global organisation across businesses, functions and geographies.
- Excellent facilitation, communication, presentation and stakeholder management skills.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office; experience with Power BI, Excel and other analytics or business intelligence tools preferred.
- Experience using enterprise-grade AI to unlock opportunities, improve decision-making and remove waste.
- Travel may be required up to 50%
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