Title: Lean Manufacturing Changeover Specialist
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Job Type: Contract (24 Months)
Compensation: $50-60/hr
Industry: Food & Beverage Manufacturing
About The Role
We are partnering with a leading global packaged foods manufacturer to hire a Lean Manufacturing Changeover Specialist. This individual will play a critical role in improving changeover performance for a high-volume snack bar production platform.
In this role, you will collaborate closely with platform teams, production floor personnel, FSQ partners, and site leadership to identify improvement opportunities, reduce changeover time, and enhance overall operating efficiency—without compromising safety or product quality.
This is a hands-on, highly flexible role ideal for someone energized by continuous improvement, experimentation, equipment learning, and applying lean principles to real-world manufacturing challenges.
Job Description
The Lean Manufacturing Changeover Specialist will own the identification, analysis, and execution of changeover improvement initiatives. You will leverage lean tools—such as process mapping, value stream mapping, root-cause analysis, fishbone diagrams, and structured experimentation—to uncover and eliminate inefficiencies.
When not directly supporting changeovers, you will investigate current cleaning practices, gain deep equipment knowledge, explore improvement opportunities, and design trials to validate enhancements. During active production changeovers, you will be on the floor partnering with operators and team leads to execute experiments, measure success, and implement approved process changes.
Key Accountabilities
Changeover Reduction Ownership
- Identify opportunities to improve current changeover practices.
- Determine longest-lead tasks and develop process standards.
- Partner with team leads to optimize resource allocation.
- Design pre-changeover preparation strategies.
- Coach teams in treating changeovers with the same rigor as production, including scheduling, resource planning, and issue escalation.
- Create best-practice methods for clearing longest-lead items.
Strategic Partnership
- Collaborate with FSQ partners to determine risk rankings and cleaning requirements.
- Build understanding across teams about why each cleaning task is performed.
- Identify and eliminate over-cleaning where appropriate.
- Create or update standard task flows to accelerate changeovers while maintaining safety and effectiveness.
Embrace a Learning Mindset
- Identify pain points and investigate the underlying reasons for cleaning tasks.
- Explore equipment, process, or tooling changes that simplify cleaning.
- Evaluate potential capital investments and present recommendations to engineering.
- Implement viable non-capital improvements.
- Conduct responsible, data-backed experiments to validate new ideas.
Leverage an External Perspective
- Benchmark cleaning and changeover practices from other sites or industries.
- Incorporate best practices from non-traditional sources (e.g., dental cleaning tools, vehicle detailing processes, automated wash systems).
- Adapt external insights to develop safer, faster, more effective internal cleaning methods.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree (Engineering or Technical field preferred) and at least 5 years of related manufacturing experience
OR
- High school diploma and at least 10 years of related manufacturing experience
- Working knowledge of manufacturing data systems (e.g., asset management, storeroom systems, quality tracking, ERP, safety/environmental systems)
- Demonstrated ability to apply foundational manufacturing systems and utilize operational standards
- Effective verbal and written communication skills
- Proven ability to coach teams, utilize standards, and apply continuous improvement principles
Preferred Qualifications
- Formal Lean or Continuous Improvement training
Technical Skills
- Continuous Improvement Methodologies
- Effective Communication Skills
Benefits
Dahl Consulting is proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees that will allow you to choose the best coverage to meet your family’s needs. For details, please review the DAHL Benefits Summary:
https://www.dahlconsulting.com/benefits-w2fta/.
How To Apply
Take the first step on your new career path! To submit yourself for consideration for this role, simply click the apply button and complete our mobile-friendly online application. Once we’ve reviewed your application details, a recruiter will reach out to you with next steps!
Equal Opportunity Statement
As an equal opportunity employer, Dahl Consulting welcomes candidates of all backgrounds and experiences to apply. If this position sounds like the right opportunity for you, we encourage you to take the next step and connect with us. We look forward to meeting you!
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