Industrial Engineer

JOB SUMMARY

The Senior Industrial Engineer (IE) is responsible for mapping, measuring, and improving processes that interface with Omniva’s Supply Chain organization per philosophy and practices of Theory of Constraints, Lean, and Six Sigma. In addition, this role will drive improvement within an Agile framework of iteration. In doing so, the IE will greatly improve the operations of Omniva’s Supply Chain and vendor base to deliver business results and meet the challenges of pioneering new technology and new vendor capabilities on an aggressive timeline at significant scale.

This is a player-coach role.

This role will interface with employees and/or vendors to create and optimize one of four value streams that are interrelated to hone the Supply Chain in support of Omniva’s business goals.

• New Product development and introduction with Engineering and Technical Program Management.
• Supplier development with Omniva vendors, Logistics, and Data Centers.
• Material supply, capacity provisioning, and break-fix servicing with vendors and operations teams in the Data Center, Network, and Engineering Control Plane organizations.
• End to end business flow driven by customer behavior with Sales and Finance.

Through industrial engineering expertise, coaching of others, discernment, and creativity this role will maniacally iterate multiple processes from current state value streams to future state value streams that derive measurable improvements in cost, customer experience, and employee experience. Also, this role works closely with Component/Quality Engineers to improve quality of Omniva technology and with Software Engineering to automate practices that don’t require human judgment or action.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Proactively go to the location of physical and/or virtual processes to observe, map, and measure them. At times travel may be required but expected to be <25% and may be <10% depending on the area of focus. Creatively finding alternatives to observe processes, such as video conferencing, may be required.
• Map processes in a value stream map (VSM) per common VSM practice nomenclature, symbols, and orderliness to permit you and others to derive insight, make decisions, and set priorities.
• Measure cycle time, cycle time variability, work in process, throughput, capacity (machine and manpower). Label measurements on the VSM. Over time, map trends in areas of priority.
• Identify the bottleneck of the process, build a plan with others to carry out the 5 Focusing Steps from Elihu Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, and ensure that plan is tracked and completed.
• Properly identify value add vs. non-value add activities by balancing the customer’s definition of “value” (e.g. willingness to pay for x value creation) and Omniva business objectives. Considering the 8 common forms of waste, identify the waste and teach others to identify them. Work to eliminate waste in priority order considering effort vs. impact. Influence others to eliminate them.
• With the help of experts in other disciplines in Omniva and at vendors, envision and document a future state VSM that better serves Omniva goals of improved reduce predictable lead times, reduced cost, better customer experience, and less toilsome employee/vendor experience. Be a champion for prioritizing and driving changes from current state to future state value stream.
• Work to establish flow in as small quantity counts as possible—e.g. pursue single-piece flow. This will be challenging in Omniva and require creativity, earned credibility to teach, and influencing skills. Begin with simple means but work towards building automation with software teams in and outside Supply Chain.
• Work to establish pull from telemetry that reveals customer actual purchases and use of Omniva products all the way through the operations and supply chain back to Omniva purchase orders and vendor material positioning and labor capacity within the supply base two layers upstream of Omniva.
• Apply basic statistics such as average and standard deviation, assuming normal distribution models, to derive a buffer or safety stock quantity that best serves the business considering current supply and demand variability.
• Understand Little’s Law and its application to discern expected inventory (or work in process) for given throughput and cycle time, as well as inventory targets for expected throughput and desired cycle times.
• Understand re-order point concepts, calculations, and the application of them for all components and all parts of the supply chain they manage.
• Facilitate Kaizen blitzes and Kaizen multi-day events, Design Thinking/7 Way creativity sessions, brainstorming, 5-Why analyses/Ishikawa diagramming, Pareto analyses, try-storming/prototyping. Employ means such as A3 to agree on scope and monitor execution. Have and foster in others a fail-fast mindset and practice.
• Build quantitative analyses in spreadsheets and operate from spreadsheets for months before more sophisticated tools are developed or purchased.
• Drive features in new more sophisticated software with vendors and/or internal software teams. Document requests and demonstrate prototypes. Test any software for accuracy per IE expertise and desired outcomes.
• Work with other teams in an Agile construct and leverage means of visualization (e.g. Kanban boards, JIRA) to track, size, and prioritize work.
• Present your analyses before leaders of the company clearly anticipating their preferred level of detail and likely questions.
• Work with other roles within Supply Chain and vendor base to drive variability (e.g. standard deviation in process) down and cycle time down. Contribute to an effective quality measurement and improvement system, leveraging the industrial engineering discipline.
• Drive root cause, solutioning, and corrective actions through Lean and Six Sigma best practices.
• Work with others to establish statistical process control systems as processes mature.
• Understand various costs that affect supply chain and supply decision tradeoffs—e.g. purchased or capital cost, depreciation schedules, warehousing costs, logistics (normal vs. expedited, sea vs. air), negotiations, overtime charges, obsolescence, accounting write downs.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering. Masters in Industrial Engineering or Data Science is a plus.
• Green Belt preferred. Black Belt is a plus.
• 7+ years applying industrial engineering—Lean, Theory of Constraints, Six Sigma, Time & Motion Studies, Value Stream Mapping, visualization of work, Kaizen facilitation. Operating within Agile framework is a plus.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Able to calculate average and standard deviation.
• Proficient in Microsoft Visio or some other medium of drawing value streams and processes for sharing electronically.
• Strong attention to detail and accuracy in work.
• Able to train people of various disciplines in basic lean, theory of constraints, and six sigma concepts and their application to the trainee’s discipline in the fields of electrical/mechanical/software engineering, electronics/enclosures/heat exchangers/fluids manufacturing, operations, logistics.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including creation of diagrams, charts, and tables.
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple priorities in a team environment.

LOCATION

Remote role.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

Competitive compensation and benefits package commensurate with experience.