Senior Manager, Lean Manufacturing
manufacturing › Lean Manufacturing · M4 — M4 — Director · Management
Leads multiple lean manufacturing teams and managers to accelerate design-for-manufacture and reduce time to market across product lines.
Median pay · United States · annual
$173,021 USD
▲ +95.9% vs M1 on this ladder
Typical range ()
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4 of 8
Track
Management
Family rungs priced
M1 · M2 · M3 · M4 · M5 · M6
—
Coordinates
2 / 4 spaces
pay@2 · 2026-07
What this role is
Leads multiple lean manufacturing teams and managers to accelerate design-for-manufacture and reduce time to market across product lines. At the Director (M4) level, the role owns a function or department, strategic priorities and cross-functional alignment, and drives function-level results. Leads managers; sets direction for the function.
What this level does
- Oversees lean manufacturing across multiple departments or sections, setting improvement policy and standards that align continuous-improvement effort with plant business objectives
- Conducts advanced manufacturing plans to optimize operations — new production line start-ups, plant commissioning, and new-product introduction into manufacturing operations
- Champions Kaizen, LEAN, and other improvement initiatives at scale, championing methods where a failed rollout could jeopardize production commitments
- Aligns diverse teams around lean principles through communication and stakeholder engagement to ensure sustainable adoption and measurable results
- Engages senior operations leaders on manufacturing strategy and metrics, translating strategic targets into a multi-team improvement agenda
- Knowledge applied
- Sets improvement policy and applies lean strategically to line start-ups, plant commissioning, and NPI across multiple sections.
- Complexity & problem solving
- Addresses strategic policy questions where a failed lean rollout could jeopardize production commitments.
- Collaboration & interaction
- Engages senior operations leaders on functional manufacturing strategy and metrics.
- Typical experience
- 8–10+ years; complex multi-team/org leadership.
Skills at this level
- Lean Six Sigma Methodologies
- — Applies continuous-improvement and process-optimization methods — VSM, standard work, 5S, SMED, Kanban, TPM, Kaizen — to eliminate waste and increase throughput in manufacturing operations.
- Root Cause Analysis
- — Uses structured problem-solving to identify the permanent root cause of recurring quality and productivity issues on the production floor and drives corrective control plans.
- Time Study & Work Standards
- — Conducts and audits time studies to set time standards, measure productivity, and support estimation of manufacturing costs.
- Workshop Facilitation & Kaizen Leadership
- — Organizes and facilitates improvement workshops (changeover, 5S, TPM, Value Stream, material flow), scoping opportunities and leading teams to solutions and control plans.
- Lean Coaching & Capability Building
- — Coaches, trains, and mentors cross-functional teams in Lean/Six Sigma tools (GEMBA, DOE, TPI) to build capability and sustain adoption of improvements.
- Workplace Flow & Layout Design
- — Plans and implements workplace flow, line layout, and equipment installations, modifications, and moves according to Lean concepts.
- Manufacturing Systems (ERP/MES)
- — Uses ERP and MES systems to pull production data, track standards and losses, and feed improvement decisions in manufacturing operations.
- New Line Start-up & NPI
- — Leads advanced manufacturing plans to start up new production lines, commission plants, and introduce new products into manufacturing operations.
- Stakeholder Alignment for Lean Adoption
- — Aligns diverse teams around lean principles through communication and stakeholder engagement to ensure sustainable, measurable adoption.
- Manufacturing Strategy & Technology Evaluation
- — Contributes to long-term manufacturing planning and evaluates new technologies such as digital manufacturing and AI-enabled process optimization for adoption.
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As of · 2026-07-30
Edition · canon-v2@2.1.0-complete
Source · canon-v2 cell + salary-benchmark (model)
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