Manager - Manufacturing Excellence & Digital Transformation

Job Description: Manager – Manufacturing Excellence, Foods India Function: Supply Chain – Manufacturing Location: Mumbai HO Req ID: R-1190517 Background & Role Foods India operates across a diverse manufacturing network, requiring consistently high standards of Safety, Quality, Service, Cost and Sustainability, while continuously improving productivity and building future-fit manufacturing capabilities. The Manager – Manufacturing Excellence, Foods India will play a pivotal role in accelerating the manufacturing excellence journey across the Foods network. The role will bring together Manufacturing Excellence, UMS, productivity, capability building and technology-enabled improvement to create a more competitive, agile and resilient manufacturing network. Key Accountabilities 1. Manufacturing Excellence & UMS Lead the Manufacturing Excellence agenda across Foods India and accelerate deployment and maturity of Unilever Manufacturing System (UMS). Establish a strong continuous-improvement culture focused on systematic identification and elimination of manufacturing losses. Strengthen performance management and problem-solving routines across factories. Drive sharing and replication of best practices across the Foods manufacturing network. 2. Productivity & Cost Competitiveness Build and drive the manufacturing productivity roadmap across the Foods network. Identify structural opportunities across labour, assets, conversion cost, waste and manufacturing processes. Partner with factory leadership and Finance to create robust improvement pipelines and translate identified opportunities into sustainable business results. Establish benchmarking across sites and use internal/external best practices to raise manufacturing performance. 3. Performance Improvement Develop a common framework for manufacturing performance and loss intelligence across Foods sites. Drive structured interventions on chronic losses and performance gaps. Strengthen the use of data analytics and data-driven decision making in manufacturing. Enable factories to move from reactive issue resolution towards predictive and preventive performance management. 4. Technology, Digital & Automation Partner with Engineering, Digital and site teams to identify opportunities where digital technologies, automation and analytics can unlock manufacturing value. Build scalable use cases around productivity, reliability, quality, process control and shop-floor decision making. Ensure successful solutions are standardized and replicated across the network. Support development of the future-fit digital manufacturing capability within Foods. 5. Manufacturing Agility Drive initiatives that improve manufacturing responsiveness while balancing service, inventory and controllable cost. Partner with Planning and factories to strengthen operating flexibility and responsiveness to changing business requirements. Identify opportunities to increase flexibility of assets, processes and operating models. 6.