Lead Continuous Improvement Specialist
operations › Operational Excellence in Manufacturing · · S5 — S5 — Principal Support Specialist · Support
An expert individual contributor who leads complex lean and Six Sigma initiatives across multiple manufacturing sites to drive sustained operational performance improvements.
Median pay · United States · annual
$59,418 USD
▲ +62.4% vs S1 on this ladder
Typical range ()
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What this role is
An expert individual contributor who leads complex lean and Six Sigma initiatives across multiple manufacturing sites to drive sustained operational performance improvements. At the Principal Support Specialist (S5) level, the role owns function-wide support practice, program-level and systemic support problems, and drives support strategy across the function. Subject-matter authority; shapes the practice.
What this level does
- Create new standard-work, audit, and data-collection procedures and templates for the CI program where none exist, and standardize them across sites
- Resolve the most complex measurement, benefits-realization, and process-governance issues in the CI toolkit and set the practice others follow
- Act as the working lead and go-to expert for CI methodology mechanics — training and facilitating specialists, coordinators, and process owners in Lean tools
- Develop and maintain the portfolio-tracking and process-governance mechanism (project intake, prioritization dashboards, benefits ledger) for the OpEx program
- Contribute to the design of new CI event formats and daily-management-system controls, piloting them before organization-wide rollout
- Knowledge applied
- Highly skilled in CI program mechanics; contributes to creating new standard-work, audit, governance and event procedures within the operational-excellence area.
- Complexity & problem solving
- Develops new techniques and templates, resolves complex benefits-realization and portfolio-governance issues that lack precedent.
- Collaboration & interaction
- Acts as working lead and facilitator — trains and guides peers and process owners in Lean tools.
- Typical experience
- 6+ years; expert in CI program administration.
Skills at this level
- 5S/6S and Standard Work Administration
- — Maintains 5S/6S workplace-organization audits and standard-work documentation on the shop floor, versioning process sheets and posting visual controls as processes change.
- KPI and SQDC Board Tracking
- — Collects cycle-time, downtime and scrap data, updates Safety-Quality-Delivery-Cost boards, and compiles KPI summaries that flag deviations against target.
- IDEAS Suggestion Program Administration
- — Runs the employee improvement-suggestion (IDEAS) program intake end to end — logging submissions, tracking status, chasing owners and reporting throughput.
- Kaizen Event Support
- — Prepares materials, coordinates logistics and facilitates portions of Kaizen and OpEx events, including data walks and standard-work timing on the line.
- Root Cause Data Analysis
- — Pulls process data and builds Pareto charts and run charts to isolate the drivers of non-routine quality and downtime problems for process owners.
- Value Stream Mapping and Kanban Boards
- — Constructs and maintains value-stream maps and Kanban visual boards, keeping flow and inventory signals accurate as the process is changed.
- Daily Process Control Auditing
- — Executes routine and non-routine process-control audits across a value stream, judging which findings warrant corrective action versus self-correction.
- CI Benefits and Portfolio Tracking
- — Reconciles continuous-improvement savings and capacity gains with Finance inputs and maintains project intake, prioritization and benefits-ledger records for the OpEx program.
- CI Procedure Creation and Training
- — Creates new standard-work, audit and data-collection templates where none exist and trains specialists and process owners in the CI toolkit as a working lead.
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As of · 2026-07-30
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