Continuous Improvement Engineer

Description

General Purpose

The Continuous Improvement Engineer is a hands-on manufacturing engineer focused on making our manufacturing processes safer, simpler, more reliable, more efficient, and easier for our teams to execute well.

The ideal candidate enjoys being on the manufacturing floor, working alongside operators and leaders, understanding how work is actually being done, identifying opportunities, testing ideas, and helping turn improvements into standard work.

Using Toyota Production System (TPS), Lean, and continuous improvement principles, this person will help our teams connect ideas to action. They will use engineering and problem-solving skills to improve flow, reduce waste, eliminate unnecessary work, improve quality, increase capacity, and develop better ways of doing things.

We are looking for someone who is curious, practical, humble, and driven to make things better. The right person may not have every technical skill or Lean tool on Day 1. What matters most is a willingness to learn, the ability to think critically, the confidence to get involved, and the drive to move problems toward solutions.

Essential Functions

• Spend significant time on the manufacturing floor observing processes, talking with team members, understanding problems, and identifying opportunities for improvement.
• Work with production teams, supervisors, and other engineers to improve safety, quality, delivery, productivity, cost, and employee experience.
• Apply Toyota Production System and continuous improvement principles such as standard work, visual management, 5S, flow, pull, waste elimination, root-cause problem solving, PDCA, and mistake-proofing.
• Identify and eliminate non-value-added work, unnecessary motion, excess WIP, bottlenecks, rework, downtime, and other sources of waste.
• Take improvement ideas from observation to analysis to experiment to implementation to standardization.
• Lead and participate in improvement projects, while maintaining a strong bias toward simple, practical solutions that can actually be implemented.
• Use data and engineering analysis when appropriate, while recognizing that good improvement starts with understanding the process and going to the source of the problem.
• Support manufacturing engineering activities including process development, equipment improvements, tooling, fixtures, layouts, material flow, capacity analysis, and manufacturing methods.
• Assist in evaluating and implementing new equipment, technology, and manufacturing processes when they provide a clear improvement in safety, quality, delivery, or cost.
• Collaborate with Product Development and Engineering to ensure new products are designed with manufacturing, quality, cost, and flow in mind.
• Develop the ability to recognize problems, ask good questions, and help others solve problems rather than simply solving every problem personally.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related engineering field.
• Manufacturing engineering experience preferred. Experience in furniture, woodworking, panel processing, CNC, assembly, metal fabrication, finishing, or other discrete manufacturing environments is highly valuable.
• Experience with Lean Manufacturing, Toyota Production System, Continuous Improvement, or related methodologies is preferred.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing processes and engineering principles.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze problems, identify root causes, and develop practical solutions.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with operators, supervisors, engineers, and leadership.
• Ability to use data and analytical tools to support decision-making while maintaining a practical, hands-on approach.
• CAD experience, preferably SolidWorks, is beneficial.
• Experience with process mapping, time studies, capacity analysis, standard work, layouts, or other manufacturing engineering tools is beneficial.
• Familiarity with furniture manufacturing materials, processes, and equipment is a plus.

Must be able to perform all essential functions of the position with or without accommodations.

Requirements

What We Are Looking For

We are looking for an engineer who enjoys the combination of thinking and doing.

Someone who can spend part of the morning analyzing a process and then spend the afternoon on the manufacturing floor testing an idea with an operator.

Someone who can look at a process and ask:

• Why do we do it this way?
• What problem are we really trying to solve?
• What is the customer actually waiting for?
• Where is the waste?
• What is preventing flow?
• What can we try today?
• How will we know if it worked?

We want someone with a bias toward action who understands that improvement does not always require a complicated solution. Sometimes the best answer is a simple one that makes the work easier, safer, or more repeatable.

The ideal candidate will:

• Be hands-on and comfortable working in a manufacturing environment.
• Have strong common-sense problem-solving ability.
• Be naturally curious and eager to learn.
• Be able to move comfortably between engineering analysis and practical      implementation.
• Be willing to ask questions and learn from operators and experienced      manufacturing team members.
• Have the humility to recognize that the best idea may come from the person      doing the work.
• Be persistent when improvements don't work the first time.
• Be able to distinguish between activity and actual improvement.
• Be motivated by seeing a process get better and seeing the results on the      floor.
• Be comfortable with ambiguity and able to move forward without having every      answer.
• Be able to build relationships and influence others without relying on authority.
• Take ownership of problems and drive them toward resolution.