Operations Analyst

About Xeal

Xeal Pharma is a Birmingham-based pharmaceutical manufacturer. We manufacture human and veterinary Specials and Cannabis-Based Products for Medicinal Use (CBPMs) for patients and animals whose needs cannot be met by standard licensed medicines. We work in a regulated environment where quality, accuracy and speed matter.

About the role

We’re looking for an Operations Analyst to build a clear, evidence-based view of how Xeal operates and turn it into better day-to-day execution.

Xeal is going through a period of evolution, so we are looking for someone who can work through ambiguity, get stuck in and solve practical problems as they arise.

You’ll work directly with Commercial, Customer Services, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Manufacturing, Quality, Finance, People and Technology teams. You will map how work is currently performed, identify delays, errors, duplicate effort and control gaps, design practical workflows and take improvements through to implementation.

This is a hands-on strategy and operations role. You will use data, systems and practical problem-solving to improve how work gets done, working directly with operational teams and the appropriate internal or external specialists where needed.

On the same day, you might observe a goods-in process, analyse a stock reconciliation, map a QA exception workflow and present an implementation decision to leadership.

What you’ll be doing

Process discovery and workflow improvement

· Building and maintaining a company-wide inventory of Xeal’s operational processes.

· Mapping each process as it actually operates, including its purpose, trigger, inputs, outputs, owner, roles, systems, data, hand-offs, approvals and controls.

· Capturing exceptions, workarounds, rework, queues, failure modes and undocumented steps, including anything missing from the written procedure.

· Working with the people who perform and supervise the work, observing processes where practical and validating maps against real examples.

· Mapping complete cross-functional journeys such as enquiry-to-order, order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, plan-to-produce, goods-in-to-release, inventory-to-dispatch, complaint-to-resolution and joiner-to-access.

· Designing simpler future workflows with clear ownership, business rules, system responsibilities, controls, exception paths, service levels and measurable outcomes.

· Converting agreed designs into requirements, implementation tasks, acceptance criteria, training needs, procedure changes and accountable owners.

Data, systems and process improvement

· Using data, automation, reporting and workflow tools to improve operational processes and remove repetitive manual work.

· Analysing and reconciling operational data across orders, stock, purchasing, manufacturing, quality and finance.

· Working with technical colleagues, system suppliers and other specialists to define requirements, test solutions and implement improvements.

· Contributing to system integrations and data-migration work by defining business rules, validating outputs and managing operational risks.

· Building reliable datasets, dashboards, alerts and operational metrics that can be traced back to defined source data.

· Assessing whether a proposed change is safe and valuable before implementation, particularly where it affects GxP records, patient supply, stock status, release decisions or financial control.

Delivery and commercial ownership

· Prioritising problems by patient or compliance risk, operational impact, cost, effort and speed to value.

· Taking improvements from problem definition through design, build, testing, training, implementation and measurement.

· Supporting the selection and implementation of ERP/MRP, quality-management, reporting and workflow systems.

· Managing important technology and service vendors, setting performance measures, challenging delivery and negotiating commercial terms where required.

· Establishing useful KPIs, risk indicators and review routines so that teams can identify problems early and act on evidence.

· Escalating access, data-quality, resource or decision blockers early rather than allowing work to stall silently.

Analytical and technical…