Position Summary
The Manager, Continuous Improvement is responsible for identifying, analyzing, and reducing sources of Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ) across Schindler’s Existing Installations, New Installations, Modernizations, and Repair businesses.
This role serves as the organization’s internal expert in statistical analysis, process improvement, operational efficiency, and quality performance. Using Lean, Six Sigma, and advanced analytical methodologies, the incumbent will identify trends, determine root causes, quantify business impacts, and facilitate corrective actions that improve profitability, customer satisfaction, productivity, and quality performance.
The position partners directly with Business Leaders, Territory Operations Managers, Branch Managers, FQE leaders, Field Operations, Application Engineering, Supply Chain, and Finance to drive sustainable performance improvements. The successful candidate will be highly analytical, possess strong facilitation skills, and have the ability to convert complex operational data into actionable business improvements.  This position requires an extroverted person that is able to listen to the people doing the work.
Key Responsibilities
Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ) Management
•    Lead analysis of enterprise-wide CoPQ metrics.
•    Identify and prioritize high-cost quality failures across EI, NI, MOD, Repair, and Service Operations.
•    Develop dashboards, scorecards, and reporting structures to identify trends and emerging risks or ensure the ones maintained by the Group are accurate.
•    Quantify financial impacts associated with quality failures and operational inefficiencies.
•    Partner with Finance leaders to validate cost savings and improvement opportunities.
•    Perform statistical analysis of portfolio losses.
Operational Performance Analysis
Existing Installations
•    Repeat Callbacks (CBK4+).
•    Multiple technician dispatches to the same unit.
•    Sick Units.
•    Mean Time Between Callbacks.
•    Route efficiency.
•    Maintenance productivity.
•    Repetitive failure trends.
New Installations
•    Jobs with negative margins.
•    Warranty call activity.
•    Rework labor hours.
•    Turnover quality issues.
•    SAIS findings.
•    Inspection failures.
•    Material shortages and defects.
Modernization
•    Margin erosion analysis.
•    Rework and defect trends.
•    Commissioning quality issues.
•    Warranty claims.
•    Material quality failures.
Repair
•    Repeat repairs.
•    Return visits.
•    Engineering support requests.
•    Labor overruns.
•    Material effectiveness.
•    Repair conversion performance.
Primary Leadership, Influence & Stakeholder Management Responsibilities
•    Build strong partnerships with operational, finance, engineering, supply chain, claims, and quality leaders to drive alignment on improvement priorities and business objectives.
•    Influence decision-making across all levels of the organization through data-driven recommendations and credible business insights, without direct authority over resources or operations.
•    Facilitate constructive discussions among stakeholders with differing priorities to achieve consensus on root causes, corrective actions, and resource allocation.
•    Serve as a trusted advisor to business leaders by translating complex analytical findings into clear, actionable business strategies.
•    Lead cross-functional workshops, executive reviews, and problem-solving sessions that result in measurable commitments and sustained business improvements.
•    Demonstrate strong organizational awareness and stakeholder management skills to navigate competing priorities, establish alignment, and accelerate decision-making.
•    Build credibility and trust through effective communication, active listening, and the ability to challenge assumptions respectfully and professionally.
•    Gain commitment from business leaders by connecting improvement opportunities to financial performance, operational excellence, customer satisfaction, and risk reduction.
•    Drive accountability across multiple departments by establishing clear expectations, ownership, milestones, escalation paths and follow-up routines.
•    Effectively manage resistance to change by engaging stakeholders early, addressing concerns, and demonstrating the value of proposed improvements.
Continuous Improvement Leadership
•    Facilitate Lean and Six Sigma improvement workshops.
•    Lead cross-functional Kaizen and process improvement initiatives.
•    Use statistical tools to identify performance drivers and correlations.
•    Conduct root cause investigations using SPSP, DMAIC, PDCA, 8D, Fishbone Analysis, Pareto Analysis, Regression Analysis, Process Mapping, Value Stream Mapping, and Failure Mode Analysis.
•    Develop corrective and preventive action plans.
•    Monitor execution and verify the effectiveness of implemented improvements.
Business Facilitation and Leadership Engagement
•    Facilitate monthly and quarterly performance reviews with business leaders.
•    Present findings and recommendations to senior leadership on the Executive Committee quarterly.
•    Challenge assumptions using data-driven insights.
•    Align stakeholders around improvement priorities.
•    Drive accountability for corrective actions.
Data Analytics and Statistical Modeling
•    Perform advanced statistical analysis to identify significant relationships between operational variables and business outcomes.
•    Develop predictive models that identify quality and profitability risks.
•    Identify leading indicators that predict future quality failures.
•    Analyze customer, labor, product-line, and operational data to uncover improvement opportunities.
•    Support development of enterprise-level quality metrics.
•    Embed target KPI’s into operational accountability.
•    Measure and track realized impact end-to-end. Measurements can include, but are not limited to savings, cost avoidance, and freed-up capacity should be quantified, but it is equally important to verify that those resources are reinvested into value-creating activities. This will require active ownership from Finance and Operations, beyond a simple dotted-line relationship
Organizational Capability Building
•    Train business leaders on Lean, Six Sigma, and problem-solving methodologies.
•    Coach managers in data-driven decision making.
•    Support development of a Continuous Improvement culture throughout the organization.
•    Standardize improvement tools, reports, and methodologies.