Specialist, Continuous Improvement Senior

Summary

CHS Inc has an exciting opportunity on our Continuous Improvement team. The Continuous Improvement Specialist will partner with Operational leaders across our Ag division to enhance organization performance and drive best in class performance. This role will lead the rollout of continuous improvement efforts to improve business process, provide greater transparency into operations and create efficiencies through innovative solutions with a focus on standardization, process optimization and improved governance. This role will also lead efforts to find cross functional opportunities and synergistic savings across Ag Wholesale and Retail Operational locations.

This role is preferred to be based in Inver Grove Heights or Rochester, MN. For highly qualified candidates outside of MN, a remote arrangement may be considered, with 25–50% travel required to operational sites and corporate as business needs dictate.

Responsibilities

Organizational and Leadership Development

• Partners on business challenges and recommends best practices to improve operational processes.
• Optimize enterprise performance by partnering with operations leaders across the company to define direction and implement changes to become best in class performance.
• Co-Lead efforts to find cross-functional opportunities and synergistic savings across operational facilities.
• Has knowledge of best practices and solve scalable problems that have a broad impact on operations using our lean framework.
• Support scalable strategies for organizational improvement, help implement and sustain change.
• Assist in lean training among front-line operations and encourage proactive problem solving.

Project Management

• Co-Facilitate projects with notable risk and complexity; develop the strategy for project execution.
• Build relationships at all levels of the organization to facilitate collaboration across business departments and functions to deliver desired program outcomes.
• Support actionable and targeted change management plans including leadership alignment and sponsorship engagement, communication and stakeholder management, role mapping and training deployment.
• Be an active and visible coach and mentor to project sponsors and leadership and have the ability to influence without authority.
• Identify resistance and performance gaps, and work to develop and implement corrective actions.

Minimum Qualifications (required)

• High School diploma or GED
• 4+ years of experience in Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Program Management or related experience. 

Additional Qualifications

• Six Sigma or Lean certification.
• Bachelor’s or advanced degree preferred in business, engineering, finance or related field.
• Proven ability to work in a fast-paced environment, prioritize projects and deliverables, and interact effectively with cross-functional teams Self-motivated, innovative, and ability to initiate and lead change.
• Creative and change-oriented continuous improvement process skills.
• Experience collaborating and driving consensus with other stakeholders to achieve tasks (IT, Finance, Business Units, etc.).
• Strong understanding of process and process design, including leveraging technology to achieve.
• Experience working in the agriculture industry.
• Multi-lingual is desirable, but not required.
• Pre-employment screening is based on the job requirements and industry guidelines and may or may not be required for the position. If required, selected candidates must pass pre-employment screenings to include all or a combination of drug, criminal, motor vehicle check, physical requirements and FMSCA Clearinghouse.