Who we Want:

• Analytical problem solvers. People who go beyond just fixing to identify root causes, evaluate optimal solutions, and recommend comprehensive upgrades to prevent future issues.

• Goal-oriented: Keeping the customer and requirements squarely in focus, people who deliver safe and robust solutions.  

• Collaborative partners. People who build and leverage cross-functional relationships to bring together ideas, information, use cases, and industry analyses to develop best practices.

• Dedicated achievers. People who thrive in a fast-paced environment and will stop at nothing to ensure a project is complete and meets regulations and expectations.

• Detail-oriented process improvers. Critical thinkers who naturally see opportunities to develop and optimize work processes – finding ways to simplify, standardize and automate

What you will do:

The Continuous Improvement Associate manager has a critical role to set the strategy for continuous improvement/quality and build the roadmap for its implementation within our finance centers

Provide support to finance areas to growing its capability by deploying strategies to instill the CI/Quality mindset across different professional levels (analysts, supervisors,  managers and senior managers) - processes that encourage people to  improve (A3 thinking) and solve problems around quality events, errors or customer complaints.

This position will be immersive in daily huddles (participation, deployment, and maturity), workshops of improvement / problem solving, coordinating efforts across the teams and provide follow to the overall improvement plan, quality management deployment; as well, collaboration with automation projects (process assessments). The Continuous Improvement Associate manager will play a guiding role in building a Culture of Excellence (assessment and cultural growth), continuous improvement and quality.

Essential duties & responsibilities:

• Deployment of the Process Excellence Model across finance services areas and provide to support to achieve maturity

• Keep abreast for new opportunities to simplify and improve data gathering.

• Deploy the Lean Six Sigma training across the Site.

• Provide training in CI methodologies and mentoring in LSS projects / initiatives to deliver business impact and efficiency goals within the organization. Help analyze & quantify results of LSS projects

• Sustain the Quality Management System across the Centers

• Facility improvement workshops to drive business impact

• Act in the capacity of a business analyst to identify and prioritize business optimization.

• Complete end to end process review across Stryker’s Shared Service Centers, identifying areas for standardization. 

• Develop improvement projects / ideas for processes linked to all key finance processes

• Lead the headcount analysis for migrations through statistical analysis. Support the process mapping and capacity analysis for migrations. Lead the change management strategy to build and sustain the process excellence culture.

Education & special trainings:

• Minimum of a B.S. in Industrial Engineering, Finance and accounting degree with CI experience or similar disciplines.

• Experience in process mapping session, BPMN and VSM (Value Stream Map)

• Experience in Cost Accounting - Record to Report

• Fluent spoken and written English. Any other language is a plus

• Knowledgeable in Minitab, R and other statistical software

• Lean Six Sigma Certified (Green Belt - Black Belt)

• Experience in improvements in Finance.

• PMP / Agile Certified is a plus

• Data Analytics is a plus

• Knowledge in Power Bi

Qualifications & experience:

• Over 5 years in continuous improvement driving projects through Lean Six Sigma methodologies. 

• Experience with Finance process, specific focus on Cost Accounting – Inventory processes

• Capable to manage stakeholders at different levels of the organization, identify customer requirements (CTQ) in projects, management communication. Excellent negotiation skills to interact with stakeholders.

• Experience deploying Process Excellence models (Shingo or similar) in Service Center environments; Assist with change strategy development and the implementation into the organization.

• Provided training in Continuous Improvement methodologies and tools.

• Experience in the A3 thinking

• Experience in leading improvement workshops (Kaizen Events) from opportunity, analysis (FMEA, Value stream mapping), root cause analysis, brainstorming for solution and implementation.

• Familiar with deployment on RPA or Automation strategies and its relationship to a CI framework. Support on change management. Experience creating process flow diagrams and technical specifications for RPA projects.

Physical & mental requirements:

• Ability to work well with cross-functional teams, multi-task and meet deadlines consistently

• Effective communication (verbal and written) and interpersonal skills, attention to detail and ability to communicate complicated issues effectively

• Demonstrated ability to perform consistently under varying business pressure as well as ability to adapt to a quickly changing environment

• Effective problem-solving skills