Lean Operations Manager in Rainham

A growth opportunity — early-career talent ready to step into a mature operations role is strongly encouraged to apply. At The Bike Club, we're on a mission to make sustainable, high-quality cycling accessible to every family. Our subscription model lets kids always ride the right-sized bike — and when they grow, we swap it out, refurbish it, and pass it on. With 80,000+ bikes on the road, $50M+ in funding, and rapid expansion across Europe, we're just getting started.

We're looking for a Lean Operations Manager to drive continuous improvement across our warehouse, refurbishment, and fulfilment operations in Rainham, London. This is a hands‑on, gemba‑first role for someone who thrives on the warehouse floor, loves solving operational puzzles, and turns observation and data into measurable change.

We've intentionally designed this as a single, broad role with real scope — and we're open to candidates at very different career stages. If you're early in your career but ambitious, structured, and hungry to step up, this is a rare chance to grow into a senior‑style operations role. If you're more experienced, you'll find plenty of room to take ownership from day one.

You’ll partner closely with our warehouse leads, mechanics, customer service, and last‑mile partners to remove waste, increase throughput, and make every refurbished bike move faster and more reliably from intake to family. Your work will directly shape how we scale a circular operation across Europe.

Tasks:

• Drive the continuous improvement roadmap across intake, refurbishment, dispatch, and returns — set priorities, run the program, and report progress to leadership.
• Map value streams end‑to‑end (bike intake → refurb → QC → outbound → courier → customer → return) and identify the bottlenecks, waste, and rework slowing us down.
• Run kaizen workshops, A3 problem‑solving sessions, and structured root‑cause analyses with mechanics, warehouse operators, and team leads.
• Define, track, and improve operational KPIs (cycle time, refurb throughput, first‑time‑right rate, on‑time dispatch, returns turnaround, OEE on key stations).
• Roll out standard work, 5S, visual management, and pull‑based flow across the warehouse and refurb workshop.
• Spend significant time on the floor — observing, coaching, and validating that improvements stick after rollout.
• Lead capacity and layout planning as we scale: workstation design, station balancing, tool placement, and bike flow.
• Partner with last‑mile and courier providers to reduce failed deliveries, returns leakage, and customer waiting time.
• Build the data and reporting backbone we need to manage operations by fact (Excel, WMS, Salesforce, BI tools).
• Coach team leads and operators in lean thinking, building improvement capability across the organisation.

Requirements:

• A genuine gemba mindset — you'd rather be on the warehouse floor than behind a desk.
• Structured, analytical problem‑solving — you can break a messy operational problem down and use data (Excel at minimum) to point at the answer.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills — comfortable working with mechanics and operators just as easily as with senior stakeholders.
• Pragmatic, organised, and biased to action — you thrive in a fast‑moving scale‑up where things change weekly.
• A relevant degree (industrial engineering, logistics, supply chain, business engineering, or similar).
• Some real exposure to operations — through internships, working student roles, a first full‑time job, a thesis project, or a few years of hands‑on experience.
• Real curiosity about lean / continuous improvement — bonus points for a Lean Six Sigma certification (Yellow, Green, or Black Belt) or demonstrated kaizen / value stream experience.
• Confidence with operational systems (WMS, ERP, Salesforce, ticketing tools); SQL or BI tooling is a plus, not a requirement.
• Fluent English (working language); German is a strong plus.

Bonus: interest or experience in circular economy, refurbishment, subscription business models, or sustainable mobility.

Benefits:

• Holidays – 25 days annual leave plus.