Process Technology Director - Wet Process

About Kerry

Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

About the role

In supporting our integrated Regional Process Technology (PT) strategy, Process Technology Director, Wet Process role will play a key role in leading out the evaluation of new opportunities such as capacity investment, new technology development, changes and upgrades to existing technologies, and identifying opportunities within the PT area on existing technologies. The incumbent will take a global view in collaboration with an extended cross-regional and cross-functional team. The role holder will also be accountable for working within region cross-functionally with link to Global to ensure that clearly defined action plans are validated, set in place and executed against identified opportunities.

Key responsibilities

Regional IO/RD&A/Process Engineering responsibility across ideation, analysis & execution phases of key strategic focus areas aligned to the Process Technology agenda aligned with commercial and operational priorities & deliverables. Partnering with the relevant PT Operations & Engineering Leads, fulfilling a functional IO/RD&A/Engineering leadership role to scope, understand, structure and deploy a sustainable performance and change programme in collaboration with regional leads across a selected area of PT focus. This activity will be enabled by the development of a community of PT practice to ensure internal knowledge sharing and transfer.

•  Lead the Regional analysis and evaluation of processes, ways of working, system data and KPIs to identify saving and improvement opportunities and support practical evaluation and implementation of those opportunities.
•  Play a lead role in the differentiation and prioritisation of performance improvement opportunities through our Process Technology pipeline & regional strategic initiatives, leveraging a broad range of Process Technology related RD&A & Operational/Engineering expertise, ensuring that RD&A & Engineering considerations are clearly set alongside proposed design constructs and/or change proposals.
•  Lead capacity analysis and investment in additional capacity to meet customer demand. Liaise with OEMs, suppliers, IO – Operations and Engineering, and RD&A on equipment, process, and controls, to deliver highest quality products, highest throughput, and lowest waste.
•  Identification of new processing technologies and equipment via TPM networks or equipment suppliers.
•  Adoption and deployment of agreed new innovative technologies; prioritization of additional scenarios informed by strategic technology assessment, platforming, site by site improvements etc.
•  Utilize and knowledge share across all RD&A/Engineering functions to ensure an end to end view of attributes & value levers within Process Technology scope with a specific focus on Gold Standard Recipe Formulation & Optimisation of Process Parameters.
•  Sizing the value, complexity, feasibility and resource requirements of opportunities and assigning work streams and milestones to team members. Escalating road blocks, resource issues or delays to in order to resolve issues.
•  Ownership and development of an integrated roadmap by Process Technology combining all improvement levers to get from current to future state.
•  Support third party infrastructure through utilising knowledge of key RD&A providers and other key third parties/SMEs
•  Work with RDA & Engineering leadership to assess need and subsequently prioritise functional resource and time in delivering opportunities; work with relevant leaders to allocate specific responsibility across the various teams & provide high level direction in collaboration with extended site/business teams
•  Working with our cross-enterprise partners e.g. Manufacturing and Engineering in delivering a shared program of work – leading a process excellence agenda, aligned and informed by our EUM strategies across the region
•  Lead the development of business case inputs for review by regional sponsor group (including CTO & COO leadership)

Qualifications and skills

Minimum Bachelor’s degree in a Food or Technical field (or equivalent experience)
8-10+ years in an RD&A role
Extensive experience and knowledge of the food and beverage industry, and deep exposure to Process Technology specialism (Wet Processing) Team Management experience working at a regional or global level within a matrixed organization