Continuous Improvement Manager – Food & Beverage Manufacturing
Location: Remote / Field-Based — UK or Ireland home base, working across EMEA
Travel: ~90% — onsite at customer plants Monday to Friday, minimum 42 weeks per year
Sector: Food & Beverage / FMCG Manufacturing | Connected Worker Technology | Industrial SaaS
Package: Competitive base + quarterly bonuses + car allowance
This is not a Continuous Improvement Lead vacancy — and it is not a desk job. We're looking for proven manufacturing leaders — CI and Lean Leaders, Production Managers, Plant Managers — to become Operational Excellence Coaches at a global manufacturing software business, spending ~90% of their time on customer factory floors across EMEA, Monday to Friday, at least 42 weeks a year.
If that travel commitment excites you rather than puts you off, read on. Have you spent your career driving OEE, Lean and TPM results on the shop floor — and outgrown the four walls of a single site? This role puts you inside a different factory every month, leading intensive frontline transformations for some of the world's best-known food and beverage manufacturers.
Why this space matters now
Manufacturers everywhere are fighting the same battle: labour shortages, high frontline turnover, and productivity targets that can't be met by capital investment alone. Connected worker technology has become one of the fastest-growing categories in industrial software because it attacks that problem directly — engaging frontline teams, making performance visible in real time, and unlocking capacity plants didn't know they had. The companies deploying it need coaches who have genuinely run shop floors, not career consultants.
The client
Our client is the market leader in connected workforce technology for manufacturing — a global SaaS business whose platform is live in well over 1,000 plants worldwide. Their customers include PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola alongside hundreds of mid-sized food, beverage and CPG manufacturers. Their deployment model is famous for speed: measurable results — on average a double-digit OEE point gain and productivity improvements approaching 30% — inside the first 90 days. The coaching team is the engine of that model.
The Role
As an Operational Excellence Coach, you'll lead end-to-end frontline transformations across the EMEA customer base. This is emphatically not a desk job: you'll spend around 90% of your time on customer factory floors, coaching everyone from operators to plant directors on how to win with the platform. You'll manage 5–6 customer accounts at a time through their 90-day engagement cycles, including intensive four-week onsite deployments at each site. It's fast, high-accountability work with visible results — and a clear path into senior coaching and leadership roles.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead hands-on onsite deployments, taking multiple customer plants through fast-paced 90-day transformation cycles
- Coach and influence frontline operators, supervisors and plant leadership to adopt Lean behaviours and get full value from the platform
- Run shop-floor Kaizen events and continuous improvement rituals grounded in Lean, Six Sigma, TPM and Operational Excellence frameworks
- Partner with plant leadership to challenge the status quo, take on difficult site cultures, and deliver measurable productivity and OEE gains
- Build trusted relationships from the production line through to senior leadership
About You
Essential:
- Substantial hands-on manufacturing leadership experience — as a Plant Manager, Production Manager, CI/Lean Leader, OpEx or TPM deployment leader, or Manufacturing Consultant. You must have run a shop floor, not just contributed to one
- A track record in Lean, Six Sigma, TPM or Operational Excellence, with measurable productivity and OEE improvements you can point to
- Evidence of being a genuine top performer — someone with a history of overachievement and progression, not a steady contributor
- The presence and confidence to challenge senior executives and inspire frontline operators alike
- Willingness to sustain ~90% travel: field-based Monday to Friday, a minimum of 42 weeks per year, across EMEA
- Full professional fluency in English
Preferred:
- Deep roots in Food & Beverage or CPG manufacturing (Automotive experience also valued)
- Experience deploying improvement programmes across multiple sites or environments
- Military leadership background combined with manufacturing or engineering experience
Why Apply
If you're energised by walking onto a shop floor and leaving it measurably better, this role offers that on repeat — different plants, different cultures, different problems, with results landing in weeks rather than years. You'll keep the manufacturing credibility you've built, add software-industry experience without needing any previous software or sales background, and join a coaching team where high performers move quickly into senior coaching and leadership positions. High autonomy, high expectations, high impact.
Additional Information
Location: Remote / field-based, UK or Ireland home base, travelling across EMEA
Travel: ~90% — Monday to Friday onsite, minimum 42 weeks per year
Start date: ASAP — candidates available on shorter notice periods are at an advantage, though we'll wait for the right person
Compensation: Competitive base salary + quarterly bonuses + car allowance — full details on application
Think this could be your next role?
We'd love to hear from you. To apply or request the full job description, contact Victoria on victoria.rybak@fmctalent.com
Reference number: 22635
Temporary or Permanent: Permanent
FMC contact for this role: Victoria Rybak