Manager, Operational Excellence & Industrial Engineering

Manager, Operational Excellence & Industrial Engineering Location: Cranford, NJ – Operations Overview Hi, we’re Nuts.com! Nuts.com is a self‑funded, profitable, rapidly growing multi‑channel DTC specialty food and wellness company with over 300 people on our team. We're changing the landscape of snacking on nuts, dried fruit, chocolate and more! The Manager of Operational Excellence & Industrial Engineering is a hands‑on, high‑impact operator responsible for improving how work gets done across our operations network. This person will lead continuous improvement, industrial engineering, and network efficiency initiatives that improve productivity (labor margin), quality, and customer experience. They will also help us build the plant of the future by identifying where automation, robotics, data, and process technology can improve how our operations work today while shaping the long‑term technology roadmap for scalable growth. We are looking for someone who can identify problems, build the business case, align stakeholders, and then roll up their sleeves to execute. How You’ll Make an Impact Own Network Efficiency and Operational Performance Analyze and improve cost to produce, labor margin, productivity, throughput, yield, waste, and operational cost drivers across the network. Identify opportunities to reduce labor cost per unit, improve units per labor hour, and increase overall operating leverage. Build and maintain clear views of operating performance across sites, departments, lines, shifts, and processes. Partner with Operations leadership to prioritize the highest‑impact opportunities and translate them into executable projects. Support network design decisions, including process flow, labor model, equipment utilization, packaging flow, space constraints, and operational scalability. Develop financial models and business cases that quantify expected savings, ROI, payback, and post‑implementation impact. Lead or co‑lead weekly meetings focused on operating costs, productivity, labor performance, Perfect Order Score, project progress, and improvement priorities. Drive Process and Industrial Engineering Conduct time studies, labor analyses, workflow observations, and process mapping to identify improvement opportunities. Develop and refine labor standards, staffing assumptions, job designs, and productivity expectations. Identify opportunities for job combination, line balancing, layout improvement, work simplification, and standard work. Improve process flow across receiving, roasting, filling, packaging, fulfillment, inventory, and other operational areas. Use Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, RCA, SMED, and other continuous improvement methods to solve problems and reduce operational friction. Partner with frontline operators and supervisors to test, validate, and sustain process improvements. Partner with cross‑functional teams on product costing, process costing, packaging assumptions, labor assumptions, and operational feasibility. Support New Product Innovation and special operations projects by helping define process requirements, labor needs, packaging flow, production readiness, and post‑launch improvements. Lead RCA, SMED, and Continuous Improvement Initiatives Lead root cause analysis for recurring operational issues, missed KPIs, quality defects, labor variance, service misses, and process breakdowns. Lead SMED and changeover‑reduction initiatives to improve line availability, reduce downtime, increasing flexibility and OEE. Facilitate Kaizen events and continuous improvement workshops with operators, supervisors, managers, and cross‑functional stakeholders. Build a pipeline of near‑term and long‑term improvement projects tied to measurable business impact. Ensure improvement actions are implemented, measured, sustained, and embedded into standard work. Help build a culture where teams use data, facts, and direct observation to solve problems. Build Metrics, Dashboards, and Decision Tools Build, maintain, and improve dashboards in Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Excel, or similar tools. Create a single source of truth for key operational metrics, including labor efficiency, cost, yield, and Perfect Order Score. Partner with the Data team to improve data accuracy, metric definitions, reporting structure, and operational decision‑making tools. Conduct ad hoc analyses using data from multiple systems and translate findings into practical recommendations. Make performance visible and understandable for frontline teams, managers, and executives. Stay Close to the Floor Spend significant time on the floor understanding product flow, labor flow, system usage, constraints, and process variation. Partner directly with operators, leads, supervisors, managers, and cross‑functional teams. Support day‑to‑day operations when needed, especially during demand spikes, launches, process changes, or operational challenges. Bring a practical, get‑it‑done mindset to problem‑solving. Balance strategic thinking with hands‑on execution. What You’ll Bring Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Supply Chain, or a related field. Master's degree or MBA is a plus. 5‑8+ years of progressive experience in operations, manufacturing, industrial engineering, supply chain, operational excellence, or continuous improvement. Experience in food, CPG, e‑commerce fulfillment, manufacturing, or another high‑volume operational environment strongly preferred. Proven ability to improve labor productivity, cost to produce, yield, quality, and service metrics. Strong industrial engineering toolkit, including time studies, labor standards, process mapping, line balancing, job design, job combination, layout optimization, and standard work. Experience leading RCA, SMED, Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, or similar continuous improvement initiatives. Ability to build financial models, quantify ROI, assess labor and cost impacts, and make data‑backed recommendations. Experience with operational costing, product costing, labor modeling, or production cost analysis. Strong analytical skills and advanced Excel capability. Experience building dashboards and reporting tools in Looker, Tableau, Power BI, or similar platforms. Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain complex operational and financial topics clearly to frontline teams, peers, and senior leaders. Ability to influence without authority and drive accountability across cross‑functional teams. Hands‑on leadership style with a strong bias for action. High ownership mentality; able to operate with ambiguity, prioritize effectively, and move work forward without waiting for perfect direction. Familiarity with GMP, HACCP, FSMA, OSHA, and food safety standards preferred. Green Belt or Black Belt certification preferred. Who You Are You are smart, analytical, and intellectually curious, but you are also practical. You do not stop at identifying a problem; you push until it is solved. You are comfortable in the data, but you know the real answers are often found by going to the floor, watching the work, listening to operators, and understanding the process firsthand. You are self‑motivated and high‑ownership. You can take a loosely defined problem, structure it, build the business case, align the right people, and drive it to completion. You are not afraid to roll up your sleeves. Whether the work involves leading a weekly cost review, running a time study, building a dashboard, supporting a product launch, reducing changeover time, or helping troubleshoot an operational issue, you bring urgency, humility, and follow‑through. You are the kind of person who makes the operation better every week. First 90 Days Spend significant time on the floor learning product flow, labor flow, system usage, packaging flow, and operational constraints. Build relationships with Operations, Data, WMS, FSQA, Engineering, and frontline teams. Assess current metrics, dashboards, and reporting gaps. Identify the highest‑impact opportunities across labor efficiency, cost to produce, packaging optimization, Perfect Order Score, yield, throughput, and process flow. Begin building a prioritized improvement roadmap with clear owners, timelines, expected savings, and measurement plans. Lead or support early wins that demonstrate measurable operational impact. What We Offer A high‑growth and rewarding role in a foundationally strong and rapidly evolving business Annual Salary Range: $130,000 - $145,000 plus annual bonus Excellent benefits including a 401K Match Paid Maternity, Adoption and Paternity leave And all the Nuts.com snacks your heart desires + a 40% employee discount EEO Statement Nuts.com is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, immigration status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, physical or mental disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. 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