Operational Excellence Lead- Cubis Systems

Cubis Systems is a global leader in the design, engineering and manufacture of network access products for the infrastructure, utility and construction markets. Headquartered in Northern Ireland, Cubis is part of the €27 billion CRH Group and operates from multiple sites across the UK and Ireland, exporting to over 30 countries worldwide.

Country: United Kingdom

Job Type: Full Time

Workplace Type: Onsite

Seniority Level: Associate

At Infrastructure Products Europe, we’re innovators, problem-solvers, and collaborators with a shared mission: creating manufacturing solutions that simplify complex infrastructure challenges. We deliver innovative, sustainable products to clients around the world. Our culture puts people at the centre of everything we do. Your ideas will be valued, your development supported, and your contributions will genuinely make a difference. Here, you’ll be part of a diverse and ambitious team that champions creativity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Competitive salary
• Company pension contribution
• A range of healthcare options
• Competitive holidays, including Christmas shutdown
• Employee Committees for Health & Wellbeing and Inclusion & Diversity
• Engagement & Wellbeing initiatives
• Employee referral programme
• Enhanced Family friendly policies
• Career development opportunities across IPE and the wider CRH Group

The Operational Excellence Lead is responsible for establishing, developing, and sustaining a structured continuous improvement system across Cubis Systems and NAL. The role identifies operational waste through data driven triggers such as variance reports, scrap analysis, customer claims, and the eight wastes, and converts these insights into improvement projects. It strengthens the systems used to deliver OPEX projects, track savings, and standardise training in core CI methodologies including root cause analysis, Lean, Six Sigma, and problem-solving tools.

This role is central to embedding a culture of operational discipline, efficiency, and continuous improvement in line with the wider business strategy. The role will also be heavily connected with the ‘Capex and Process Engineering Manager’; where wastes are identified that cannot be resolved via Opex project delivery the opportunities must be fed into the capex pipeline so that the wastes do not remain hidden in the business.

• Design, implement, and maintain a structured CI framework focused on manufacturing operations. The framework must scale from individual continuous improvements to larger scale cross-functional project delivery, resulting in a mixture of a high-volume task orientated improvements combined with low volume project orientated improvements.
• Develop methods to improve CI by issuing annual guidance from key departments in terms of Quality strategies, HR bottlenecks, Commercial forecasting, VOC and site feedback to ensure CI work enables the business to succeed.
• Build standard methods for identifying waste using triggers such as variance reports, scrap hotspots, customer complaints, downtime data, OOE/OEE and any other KPI’s that can highlight waste in the business.
• Develop and maintain a pipeline of improvement opportunities aligned to business priorities and ensure that key personnel across all departments have active CI projects.
• Establish visual management and performance dashboards to support daily/weekly operational reviews.
• Integrate closely with the process/manufacturing engineers to analyse operational data to identify trends, recurring losses,…