Vice President, Quality Systems & Operational Excellence

Description:

Springs Window Fashions is hiring for a Vice President, Quality Systems & Operational Excellence.  This is a remote role (US-based) with frequent travel, primarily to our facilities in North America and corporate headquarters in the Madison, WI area as well as customer locations.  

Company Overview

Springs Window Fashions is a leader in the custom window treatment industry since 1939. Headquartered in Middleton WI, we have over 7,500 associates with locations in North America, Europe, and Asia.  Our custom window treatments are available under the Bali, Graber, SunSetter and Mecho brands in nearly every major retailer, in thousands of designer showrooms, and showcased in large commercial buildings.

Our company has made significant investments to become a leader in product innovation.  As North America’s premier window covering company, we’re committed to creating a “Best Experience” for our consumers, channel partners and associates.  We are bringing new innovations to the market at an accelerating pace and have a variety of offerings to consumers who want to improve their home décor. 

Job Summary

This role will provide leadership, guidance, systems, and tools to promote the cultural values of the 'Springs One Pager.' It will be responsible for developing and driving the implementation of the Spring Business Operating System (SBOS), including quality management systems, across all areas of the enterprise—from concept through integration into daily processes. SBOS will serve as the framework to achieve total customer satisfaction and business success by fostering talent engagement and talent development.

As a change agent and strategic partner, this role will collaborate closely with the operations leadership team and senior leadership to drive consistent results by applying lean systems, tools, and fostering ideal behaviors.

Job Responsibilities

• Responsible for developing and enabling the implementation the Springs Business Operating System (SBOS) across all areas of the business.
• Strengthen strategic process planning and link the right use of SBOS systems and tools to meet company mid-term annual operating goals and strategic objectives.
• Develop and promote accountability at all levels through the usage of metrics that drive results (lagging and leading key performance indictor (KPI) and key behavior indicators (KBIs)).
• Improve and create systems to support a continuous improvement culture, where systems and standards status quo are continuously challenged.
• Build and enhance quality management systems focused on customer satisfaction, business process standardization, reliability, and effectiveness.
• Lead implementation and compliance of quality systems from product design to order fulfillment (e.g. design for quality/manufacturing, Bulit in Quality Systems (BIQS)).
• Collaborate with Product Business Teams (PBT) and engineering to drive a strong product and process quality design system.
• Search and establish external and internal benchmarks through best practices sharing and standardization to create a CI culture: Networking, sharing, and copying proudly.
• Collaborate with operations and business leaders across the company to drive change management within business units, ensuring the successful adoption of new processes and procedures that promote operational excellence and continuous improvement.
• Create and improve SBOS professional documentation, training materials and internal branding to support deployment of the new operating system.
• Establishment of SBOS assessment to guide and measure progress within plants and enterprise towards operational excellence.
• Manage all corporate sponsored SBOS and Lean operations projects.
• Lead and direct Operations Excellence & Quality teams.
• Provide mentorship to plant process engineers across all operations in the U.S. and Mexico through a functional reporting relationship related to SBOS and lean tools.

Education and Experience

• Master’s degree in manufacturing operations strongly preferred
• 10+ years in Operations Management or closely related field plus 3 years’ experience as an Operations or Managing Director level utilizing continuous improvement and low-cost manufacturing processes to lead the restructure and consolidation of multinational manufacturing operations.
• Leading in a multi plant environment.
• Bilingual (English/Spanish) is preferred.

Ideal Profile

• Two critical domains: Global Quality Management and Operation Excellence
• Customer Centric focus: Demonstrated experience in driving initiatives that enhance customer satisfaction and operation responsiveness to market demands.
• Proven success in leading global excellence programs in a multi plant environment with focus on customer satisfaction, cost improvement and talent development.
• Global quality management systems expertise: Implementing quality management systems (e.g. design for quality/manufacturing, BIQS).
• Strategic and Shop Floor Orientation: balance between strategic vision and on-the-ground engagement, ensuring initiatives are both forward-thinking and actionable at the operational level.
• Collaborative Leadership or Demonstrated ability to lead in matrixed, cross-functional organizations, building synergy between quality and operational teams globally.
• Proven leadership through humility and direct with respect
• Proactive, solution-oriented approach to diagnosing and resolving both quality and operational challenges.
• Success in fostering a team-oriented culture focused on accountability and continuous improvement.
• Proven experience of team development through mentorship and coaching
• Job involves extensive travel to global company worksites and customer locations.