Operational Excellence Lead (5S & Kaizen)

Job Description

Job Description

About the role

Picture your morning at Nippon Paint Automotive Americas Inc. (NPAA): you start on the production floor, walking a 5S audit with team members, spotting flow interrupters before they become bottlenecks. By lunch, you’re whiteboarding cross-functional workflows with Operations, Quality, and Supply Chain, redesigning processes for speed and stability. Your afternoon shifts to facilitation—running a Kaizen focused on cost and inventory turns—then closing the day by updating CI logs, capturing before/after states, and reviewing the monthly customer scorecard to target the next round of improvements.

What you’ll drive

• Own and champion NPAA’s 5S system—sustain audits, visuals, and coaching for lasting workplace discipline.
• Lead cross-functional analyses to map sequences of operations and re-engineer workflows for safety, quality, delivery, and cost.
• Conduct studies on cost control/reduction, inventory control, and production record systems; recommend and implement operating method changes.
• Facilitate Kaizen events across the business to remove waste and build capability.
• Apply Lean and Six Sigma toolsets on multiple concurrent projects to solve problems and stand up new processes.
• Track the monthly customer scorecard and launch corrective and preventive improvements accordingly.
• Trend and elevate quality-system performance: change control, customer feedback and complaints, investigations, deviations, and on-time delivery.
• Source and share best practices from Nippon group companies and relevant industry standards.
• Document baseline and improved conditions; maintain accurate, up-to-date logs on all CI work, in-flight and completed.

What you bring

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline preferred (or equivalent practical experience).
• 10+ years of relevant experience in manufacturing environments.
• Working knowledge of IATF 16949 and/or ISO 9001.
• Proven project leadership delivering cross-department process improvements.
• Exceptional planning, organization, and change agility.
• Demonstrated leadership, analytical rigor, decision quality, and problem-solving skills.
• Self-starter who operates effectively with minimal supervision.
• Nice to have: formal Lean/Six Sigma training or certification; SAP experience.

Why NPAA

• Earned bonuses: monthly hourly attendance bonuses, merit increases, and an annual incentive plan.
• Time off and holidays: 11 paid holidays plus paid time off.
• Comprehensive benefits: robust health and welfare coverage options.
• Retirement: 401(k) with an exceptional company match.
• Growth & recognition: employee recognition programs and tuition reimbursement.
• Community: a welcoming NPAA family with appreciation events throughout the year.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Nippon Paint Automotive Americas Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.