Manufacturing Excellence Manager

**Your Role**

We are looking for a **Manufacturing Excellence Manager** to join the leadership team of our plant at **La Chapelle (France)**, who will report directly to the Plant Director. In this role, you will be responsible for leading our Manufacturing Excellence Program in your plant, delivering performance while building long-term capabilities and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

**What you will do**
- Lead the implementation of the Manufacturing Excellence Program across the Plant, ensuring it is deeply embedded through the entire organization and aligned with strategic objectives.
- Contribute to the evolution of the Global Manufacturing Excellence program, actively collaborating with peers across our international manufacturing network and promoting benchmarking and best practice sharing across multiple manufacturing sites.
- Promote a Run-To-Target and Continuous Improvement culture throughout all the organization, coaching cross-functional teams to develop the capabilities and systems needed to deliver sustainable excellence.
- Promote a culture of Fundamentals (Safety, Quality and Environment compliance) acting as a role model
- Serve as a core member of the Plant Leadership Team, influencing key strategic decision, driving operational priorities and delivering business target results.
- Partner with the broader Plant One Team to drive improvement initiatives, unlock efficiency opportunities and minimize process losses.
- Establish a comprehensive performance management system to align team goals with business targets, ensure full organization commitment and sustain effective results tracking, root cause analysis and countermeasure execution.
- Lead process trials and initiatives in partnership with key stakeholders to ensure structured planning, effective execution and full compliance with operational standards

**What we are looking for**
- ** Education**- University Degree: Business Administration, Engineering
- Fluency in English (written and spoken)- ** Competencies**- Capacity to make a clear impact in the organization, influence Plant leadership and inspire high-performing teams
- Excellent stakeholder management, influencing/communication and change management practitioner
- Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution
- High learning agility and self-awareness
- Experience in cross-functional and international environments
- ** Functional Expertise**- Proven expertise in Lean Implementation and Cultural Transformation, driving leadership behaviours, high performance, operational excellence, cost efficiency, and customer focus using lean tools.
- Proven ability to coach at all levels of organization, building self-sufficient teams and engaging both executive leadership and shop floor teams.
- Experienced in leading cross-functional teams through cultural transformation initiatives on the shop floor, achieving measurable and sustainable results.
- Strong process-oriented mindset with deep expertise in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and problem-solving methodologies.
- Skilled in coordinating multidisciplinary teams to deliver impactful business initiatives.
- Demonstrated emotional intelligent leader who drives cultural change by understanding team motivations, addressing resistance, and encouraging progress.
- Empowered teams and stakeholders by showcasing achievements, sharing success stories, and capturing lessons learned to replicate best practices across plants.
- ** Critical work experience**- 3+ years in Manufacturing Operational Leadership Positions, with proven success in leading cultural transformation
- 3+ years leading Transformation Programs and building world-class operations practices
- Preferably, experience in FMCG, food industry, in highly automated environments

**What we offer**
- Incentives and profit-sharing
- Free canteen
- Breakfast and fresh fruit
- Amazon product discount
- 80% of health insurance costs are covered by the company
- CSE: various activities and benefits all year round
- Affinity University platform: Professional development opportunities for employees at different stages of their careers, acknowledging diverse career paths.
- Celebrations & Fun

We cultivate an inclusive culture that celebrates diversity. We firmly believe that embracing a variety of perspectives is integral to both our company’s success and the strength of our team. That’s why we are committed to providing equal opportunities for all.

**Our Company**

Affinity Petcare is more than an international petfood company. For more than 60 years, we have been dedicated to nourishing healthy bonds between dogs, cats, and people to make the world a better place.

We are very proud of our innovative brands which include: Ultima, Advance, Brekkies, Nature’s Variety, Nature’s Menu, Natural Trainer, Libra, and more. Currently, we have over 1,200 professionals working for this purpose from Barcelona, Paris, Milan, and London, as well as 4 production sites th