Head of Operation Excellence

£65,000 to £75,000 per annum plus £5,688 per annum car allowance, bonus and benefits. Field based - visiting SN operations across England and Wales.

Our reputation as the UK’s largest newspaper and magazine wholesaler speaks for itself. Every day, we serve more than 22,000 customers from 34 distribution centres across the country. Behind every nightly miracle is a team of dedicated people carrying out more roles than you realise – we’re the unseen force that delivers. So when we say we’re excited for what the future holds for our customers and colleagues, you can trust we’re as good as our word.

The Head of Operational Excellence for Smiths News is accountable for designing and driving the OE architecture and methodology across the business, leading the transformational journey towards sustainable operational excellence. The outputs are to improve efficiency, remove waste, increase capacity and value to our customers. Reporting to the Director of Strategy and Change and leading all central OE resources and activities whilst coaching and advising all leaders across the business in the adoption of OE principles, tools, skills, methods and approaches to driving consistency and sustainable operational improvement.

Bringing new resources, materials, thinking and approaches to SN to help with the OE objectives supported by coaching and development to drive the OE capability across the business.

Driving the OE principles, focusing on the initial prioritised 6 (Committed Leadership, Right First Time, Standardisation, Visual Management, Go, See, Do & Customer).

• Designing OE activities and interventions to improve operational performance and enhance colleague capability in the use of ‘Think Work Behave’ model and supporting tools and techniques.
• Responsible for the quality of OE design, supporting establishment of standard training materials, templates and the governance framework.
• Identifying scale opportunity and applying OE to support interventions to deliver measurable business benefit.
• Preparing reports and materials to support the understanding, approach, outcomes, recommendations of all centrally led OE activity.
• Acting as mentor and coach to key leaders within the business who are developing their OE competencies.
• Being subject matter expert to the organisation on operational excellence.

Requires ability and willingness to work at any SN operating location as required, and flexibility to travel as the role requires. On occasion requires working early hours to review, support night operations (e.g. 02:00 – 10:00).

Not only do we offer free onsite parking, 4x salary life assurance and 5% match pension but you’ll also have access to:

• £5,688 per annum car allowance.
• Company bonus.
• Company funded Health Cash Plan – providing cash back for everyday healthcare costs such as dental, optical and physiotherapy.
• 24/7 E-Learning modules, Training and Development opportunities.
• Sharesave Scheme, Cycle to work schemes, Health cash plan.
• Private medical insurance.

• Extensive experience in implementing OE across a range of sectors and functions.
• Ability to lead operational interventions, working with site teams to test, trial and implement process efficiency changes.
• Experience with implementing and leading OE in non-operational / transactional areas.
• Extensive experience in designing and leading focused improvement events resulting in validated step change in efficiency, key performance indicators and enhancing colleague knowledge and capability.
• Expertise in material flow design and layout optimisation.
• Highly skilled in influencing stakeholders and effectively engaging with all levels of business.
• Certification in Lean, 6 Sigma, CI preferred.
• Experience of leading and inspiring and knowledge transfer.

Please note: you must have the right to work in the UK to be considered for this position.

A career with us is a career filled with people, pride, and passion. We rely on each other to get the job done, and we deliver what we say we will. Let’s see if we can rely on you, too. Apply now.