Director, Operational Excellence

At West, we're a dedicated team that is connected by a purpose to improve patient lives that has been at the center of our Company for more than a century. Our story began when Herman O. West solved the problem of supplying penicillin in mass quantities to the US Government during World War 2. Through our work to deliver thousands of life-saving and life-enhancing injectable medicines to millions of patients daily, West's indelible mark on the healthcare industry has just begun. A name started our story. How will yours help write our future?


There's no better place to join an inclusive community of professionals with opportunities for lifelong learning, growth and development. Supported by benefit programs, we empower the physical, mental, emotional and financial health of our team members and their families.


We believe in giving back to help those in need in the communities where we live and work. And are equally committed to creating a healthier environment and planet through our sustainability efforts.


Job Summary

In this role, you will have responsibility for executing upon assigned initiatives which could include, but are not limited to, strategic assessments, operational assessments, process analysis, opportunity identification, workshop facilitation, improvement execution, and control plan development and management. This is a broad role which requires oversight of technical and business complexities. This role will require you to assist in the development of strategic plans for driving transformation and remediation initiatives. You will be seen as a catalyst for change and a driver of engagement for improvements. You'll provide leadership on strategic thinking and transformational processes to ensure established goals and objectives are met. A strong desire to engage teams across all levels and for implementing improvements assures that you are a good fit for the role.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop recommendations to create a transformation and remediation strategy and roadmap, guide a steering team to drive execution.
• Create a cross-functional team (e.g. Operations, OPEX, Engineering, Quality) that come together to review, plan and implement transformational efforts at SOC relating to the SOC Quality Management System and all SOC internal processes.
• Responsible for prioritizing the processes to be reviewed and transformed/remediated based on initial assessment and making recommendations to the site leadership team.
• Collaborate with the NPI/Project team where transformational activities are of the scale to be deemed a project or program.
• Provide portfolio management support (milestone tracking, status reporting, value tracking, risk issue and escalation) for work streams in the strategy transformation office.
• Develop a deep understanding of the strategy and the associated workstreams to identify dependencies, risks/ issues and change communication needs.
• Engage with multiple stakeholders within the firm and develop relationships to address and work through workstream questions and challenges.
• Liaise with other portfolio managers and leader across the firm to understand cross workstream dependencies, risks and issues; Build a trusted rapport with leadership and teams.
• Develop and communicate a clear vision for operational improvement, change management and transformation
• Monitor and report on the progress of projects to senior leadership and stakeholders within the Contract Manufacturing Operational Unit Leadership team.
• Share and seek our best practice within the global contract manufacturing network.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including operations, quality, engineering, and supply chain to drive change and improvement efforts.
• Define and manage the tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of change programmes and OpEx initiatives.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement across the manufacturing network in Dublin.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree in a relevant discipline; project management, engineering, or business required

Work Experience

• Minimum 10 years experience in a manufacturing/production environment required
• 2+ years of people management experience required
• Experience in leading a team through Change Management preferred
• Track record of executing large scale change , extremely results and outcome focused within strict timelines.
• Respected leadership that will galvanize teams to pursue transformation and high performance.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Must have good interpersonal/leadership skills and be able to interface with all departments and team member levels.
• Must have excellent organizational, interpersonal and problem-solving skills and be able to interface with employees in all levels of the organization.
• Excellent computer skills required including SAP, all MS Office applications, Mini-tab and other statistical software programs.
• Experience in highly regulated industry and compliance environment.
• Experience with highly complex, inter-connected systems and business processes.
• Experience working in a matrix environment.
• Able to be aware of all relevant standard operating procedures as per Company policy as they are related to the position covered by this Job Description.
• Support and contribute to Lean Sigma programs and activities towards delivery of the set target.
• Able to comply with the company's safety policy at all times.
• Able to comply with the company's quality policy at all times.

License and Certifications

• Finance and Accounting\Portfolio Management Professional (PMP) PMP certification/education upon hire preferred
• Lean Six Sigma green belt or above certification/education upon hire preferred

Travel Requirements

10%: Up to 26 business days per year

Physical Requirements

Light-Exerting up to 20lbs/9kg of force frequently, and/or negligible amount of force frequently constantly to move objects.

Additional Requirements

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to, sit, stand, walk, talk, hear, see and use hands and finger to operate office equipment (i.e., phones, computers, copies, etc.).
• Sitting and/or standing for extended periods may occur as well as getting to and from offices and building sites.
• The ability to be able to lift and carry various items up to 30 pounds.
• The noise level in the office work environment is usually quiet. The noise level in the manufacturing work environment is moderate to loud. Hearing protection is required at all times in the manufacturing work environment.
• Job requires mental skill or ability such as communication, decision making (sometimes quick), interpreting data, reading, writing, organization, problem solving, understanding direction, supervising and speaking publicly, etc.

#LI-TH1

West is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. If you have a special need that requires accommodation in order to apply to West, please send an email to View email address on click.appcast.io. Where permitted by law, an offer of employment with West Pharmaceutical Services, or any of its subsidiary or affiliate companies, is contingent upon the satisfactory completion of background screening.