Continuous Improvement Manager

Kinrise is a growing, privately owned powerhouse in Australian food manufacturing with some of Australia’s most loved and innovative brands. We describe ourselves as a ‘start up with scale’ and have a burning ambition to grow our business. Formed in 2018 the Kinrise portfolio covers Biscuits, Breakfast, Baking, Bakery, and Snackfood categories and has 40+ years making iconic Australian food, with a rich Australian heritage that’s grounded in family origins.

About the Role

As Continuous Improvement Manager, you will lead end-to-end continuous improvement across the Bakery business. You will connect operational and digital data with practical decision-making, build sustainable operating systems and ensure new automated assets achieve their full safety, quality, service, cost and capacity potential.

This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who can move confidently between the factory floor, data and analytics, cross-functional transformation and executive conversations. You will build a prioritised improvement portfolio, coach teams to solve problems independently and deliver measurable, sustained benefits across planning, production, warehousing and customer service.

What You Will Do

• Transform value streams: Lead end-to-end improvements that reduce lead time, constraints and waste, while simplifying processes, hand-offs and decision ownership.
• Turn data into action: Establish trusted KPIs, accountable data ownership, accessible dashboards and a single view of performance to support faster, better decisions.
• Optimise automated lines: Use OEE, downtime and loss data to improve availability, throughput, changeovers and reliability, and safely ramp up new assets against approved targets.
• Embed a Lean operating system: Build consistent performance routines, standard work, structured problem solving and controls that sustain improvements and prevent recurring losses.
• Govern the improvement portfolio: Define scope, baselines, milestones, risks and benefits, and provide transparent reporting on delivery, savings, capacity and replication.
• Lead change and build capability: Secure cross-functional ownership and coach leaders and frontline teams to confidently use data, Lean methods and digital tools.
• Build safety, quality and compliance into every change: Ensure improvements are risk-assessed, controlled and validated, strengthening food safety, quality, traceability and regulatory compliance.

What You Will Bring

• At least five years’ experience leading measurable continuous improvement, operational excellence or transformation initiatives in manufacturing, FMCG, supply chain or another complex operating environment.
• A track record of delivering cross-functional improvements beyond production alone.
• Strong analytical capability, including data extraction, cleansing and visualisation, statistical analysis and validation of financial benefits.
• Practical experience using automated equipment data, OEE, downtime and loss analysis, or manufacturing digital systems to improve performance.
• Proven ability to facilitate complex problem solving and deliver improvement projects and programs across multiple stakeholder groups.
• Strong change leadership, influencing and coaching skills across frontline, functional and executive levels.
• A relevant tertiary qualification in engineering, operations, supply chain or a related discipline.

Highly regarded: Experience commissioning, ramping up or optimising highly automated manufacturing equipment, together with knowledge of food manufacturing requirements such as GMP, HACCP, traceability and controlled change.

How You Will Lead

You bring a courageous, commercially minded approach to improvement. You can make the numbers meaningful, challenge accepted ways of working and create practical solutions that teams own. You build trust, provide clarity, foster accountability and bring people together when challenges arise.

Why Join Us?

Kinrise is a fast paced, agile business that focuses on your talents and challenges you to perform at your best. An opportunity with us would mean:

• An opportunity to work with leading Australian-made brands and products

• An exciting role in a growing business with a great history and an ambitious growth agenda

• Supportive and collaborative team culture

Kinrise is committed to creating an environment that welcomes all, celebrates our diversity in all its forms and fosters an environment of inclusion. We recognise that our unique differences are what sets us apart and how we succeed as a team. We are an equal opportunity employer.