Production Group Leader

Here at Kerry Foods we lead the way in manufacturing and marketing chilled foods that delight consumers across the UK, Ireland and international markets. As well as creating the finest customer-branded chilled foods, we also own an impressive stable of our own household name brands, from Cheestrings, Yollies, Denny and Dairygold to Mattessons, Wall’s and Richmond sausages.

We have 6,000 people working across 14 manufacturing sites, as well as a number of commercial bases throughout the UK and Ireland, and together we drive a business with an annual turnover of €1.5 billion. Our open minded and forward-looking culture empowers our people to use their passion, skills and customer-centric focus to build on this success, driving our ambitious growth strategy, and ensuring we delight the tastes of tomorrow.

Kerry Foods is part of Kerry Group - one of the largest and most technologically advanced providers of Taste & Nutrition solutions in the world. The Group supplies over 15,000 products to many of the world’s biggest names in the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets and had revenues of over €6 billion in 2015. It has 100 manufacturing sites across the world serving over 140 markets. Of our 23,000 people over 800 are scientists, demonstrating how innovation and technology lie at the heart of our organisation, and always will do.

High Performing Teams

Lead the Production Stream team to ensure they are engaged and high performing with a focus on problem solving and team work. Build trust through effective leadership and the skilled application of people management processes and open 2 way communications.

Following standard procedures:

• Recruit and select the right team members.
• Induct new members into the team.
• Build team skills through skills assessment, training, feedback and support.
• Manage on-going performance of direct reports.
• Identify those who have the interest and ability to progress into bigger or different roles and facilitate this through agreed procedures.
• Manage grievance and disciplinary issues as required with the support of HR as necessary.

Standard Development & Standard Confirmation

• Review relevant site policies & procedures and ensure the requirements they specify are documented in standard work and trained out to Team Leaders & Members.
• Check that standards set within the Production Stream are adhered to through layered confirmation.

Facilitate & Execute Continuous Improvement

• Continuously improve standards set by facilitating and executing 8 Step Practical Problem Solving and other appropriate KPS methodologies within the Production Stream and perform GAP analysis on manufacturing data to understand where to focus/prioritise problem solving efforts.

Organise & Optimise Labour

• Manage the availability of labour against the plan and work with Production Stream Manager and other site based Production Streams to optimise labour across the site.
• Cover essential elements of Production Stream Manager and Team Leader Role in the event of unplanned absence.

Manage process reliability

• Monitor & Improve OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) through implementation of Kerry Asset Management System (KAMS). Identification of bottlenecks within the process, report and conduct problem solving with relevant Production Stream team members.
• Analyse & report conversion performance metrics Through analysis of Key Performance Data, identify performance gaps, trends and improvement opportunities and communicate internally using visual management standards in the Production Stream

Manage Quality

• Maintain product quality and adherence to GMP through management of the team and process to deliver agreed product specifications as defined in quality standards and policies.

Project Design & Delivery

As part of a wider project team assist and manage the delivery of key projects that have an impact on the Production Stream (e.g. Jishuken, Capital, NPD)

Manage Health and Safety

• Protect the health and safety of all Production Stream employees through instituting and adherence to site safety culture.
• Conduct risk assessment on all processes and tasks in the Production Stream,
• implement countermeasures and mitigation plans to address identified risks.
• Monitor and calculate team member performance and adherence to safety SOP’s.

Manage Maintenance

• Coordinate shift maintenance activities in conjunction with engineering team members to deliver planned, reactive and autonomous maintenance.

• Proficient written, numerical and verbal skills
• Experience of managing a team in a fast paced process environment.  (Previous food manufacturing experience is desirable, though not essential.)
• Excellent people management skills, with experience fostering a culture of  teamwork and leading a team through change.
• Must be able to work shift pattern i.e, 4 on- 4 off; the 4 on is made up of 2 days (7am-7pm) followed by 2 nights (7pm-7am).  Shift pattern includes working across weekends.
• Preference may be given to candidates who also have lean manufacturing experience.