Director Continuous Improvement

Covia responsibly provides minerals solutions for a better tomorrow. As a leading provider of diversified minerals, our products support a variety of industrial markets, including glass, ceramics, coatings, metals, foundry, polymers, construction, water filtration, and sports and recreation. Long-standing relationships with a broad customer base enable Covia’s market-inspired approach to innovation to enhance solutions and customer benefits. Underpinning these strengths is an unwavering commitment to safety and to sustainable development, further enhancing the value that Covia delivers to all its stakeholders.

Covia is looking for a Director of Continuous Improvement who will have a positive impact on the Operations team across our network of plants. As a Director of Continuous Improvement, you will be responsible for successfully establishing and improving an operating environment that embraces the continuous improvement process, implementing and maintaining systems, driving productivity improvements as well as leading, coaching, motivating, and engaging the work teams to accomplish operational objectives

The successful incumbent will have the following Key Accountabilities:

- Create and implement a comprehensive continuous improvement strategy, in alignment with Covia’s long-term (Fit2Grow) goals

- Assist in the development and maintenance of Covia specific Operations Management System primarily for site operations with objectives that include:

- Drive a culture of performance by enabling teams

- Improve work effectiveness and efficiencies

- Provide the tools and approaches needed by teams to deliver

- Identify systems to support debottlenecking and loss prevention

- Develop Operational KPI’s, dashboards and reporting that identify strengths and opportunities for continued improvement

- Maintain KPI metrics and reporting systems to track the progress and effectiveness of improvement initiatives

- Develop methodology to consolidate, prioritize, resource, execute, and track impact for a portfolio of Continuous Improvement (CI) projects for areas of productivity, energy, and growth.

- Facilitate workshops to generate involvement for problem solving and idea generation at all levels throughout the Organization including front line workers.

- Provide leadership to support each site’s utilization of Lean and Six Sigma tools in production, business, and transactional processes to drive focus on the critical items that will yield the highest impact to the organization.

- Seek solutions regarding more effective and efficient administrative processes.

- Coach and drive improved capabilities in the cross functional organization.

- Assist with staffing and hiring decisions for the Operations Excellence organization to support business objectives.

- Build and foster a strong culture of personal and process safety across the organization.

- Travel Requirements maximum 50%.

- Collaborate with cross-functional and interdependent departments as required.

- Perform other duties as assigned

The successful incumbent will have the following Minimum Qualifications:

- Bachelor’s degree or higher in Business Management, Engineering, or Science from an accredited college or university, required

- Advance Degree or Certification is highly desirable i.e., MBA, Lean, Black Belt, etc.

- Minimum of 8 years of work experience in operations organization leadership

- LEAN / 5S experience from a company with a strong, formal lean business system. Solid lean tool technical skills, project management experience and decision-making capability

- Proven track record of implementing continuous improvement initiatives across multiple sites with and realized and verifiable operational cost savings and increased customer satisfaction

- Engage and Empower People, Sets High Expectations & Clear Direction, Drives & Delivers Performance and Leads with Agility

- Ability to coach, develop and mentor technical and business talent to solve complex problems, deliver results and develop in leadership or operational career paths

- Self-motivated to resolve challenges and address obstacles

- Openly address and speak up regarding opportunities to improve the performance of the business

- A successful track record of effectively improving plant operations

- Strong communication skills are essential.

- Strong analytical and technical skills, ability to solve complex problems, ability to innovate, and a strategic business perspective and financial acumen

Commitment to Our Culture:

Our core values - Safety, Team, Customers, Growth, and Courage—guide our work every day and will help us achieve our vision: Covia is the leading minerals solutions provider, and through the passion and commitment of our people, we enable customer success—ensuring a sustainable future for our company.

All Covia Team Members are expected to:

- Live the Life-Saving Rules

- Build high-performing work teams

- Focus on customers

- Demonstrate a growth mindset

- Do the right thing, always

At Covia, we strive for and support a diverse workforce as we firmly believe this lays the foundation of our success. Our compelling culture supports inclusion, individuality, and respect within the workplace. We are committed to providing employment opportunities to the most qualified candidate based on work-related factors and without regard to non-work-related factors including race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability, or military service or reserve or veteran status.

The organization offers competitive salaries, advancement opportunities, and a full range of benefits.

Benefits:

- Excellent Healthcare Benefits – medical, vision, dental

- 401K with company matching

- Vacation + Paid Holidays

- Disability, Life / AD&D, and Long-Term Care Insurances

- Employee Assistance Program

- Competitive Incentive Bonus

An Equal Opportunity Employer

IND2

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Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.