supply chain excellence Director

I am Sara, an Executive Consultant, with over 10 years of experience in executive recruitment and consulting for top-tier companies. Projekts is proud to collaborate with international clients, including (Fortune 500 companies), operating in more than 20 countries worldwide. We are currently seeking for a Supply Chain Lean Manager – Europe (M/F) Tier-1 Automotive Supplier, located in several eruopean countries depending your preference whoth a lot of travel involved. The contextA recognised player in the automotive value chain, our client designs, industrialises and delivers technically demanding solutions for the world's leading carmakers. In an industry where every hour of immobilised stock, every broken flow and every uncontrolled variation weighs directly on margin and customer satisfaction, the company has made the demanding choice to anchor its supply chain in the founding principles of the Toyota Production System. It is to carry this ambition day after day, across its entire European footprint, that it is now looking for its Supply Chain Lean Manager.Your missionYour purpose can be captured in a single sentence: to fundamentally transform supply chain processes so that value flows as leanly as possible — without waste, without disruption and without overburden. You are not the keeper of a toolbox, but the craftsman of a system in which pull flow, standardisation and continuous improvement become the natural way of working. Concretely, you relentlessly hunt down the three enemies of performance — muda (waste), mura (unevenness) and muri (overburden) — to build a logistics chain that is fluid, predictable and able to surface its own problems rather than conceal them.What you will drive in practiceYou always start on the ground, true to the principle of genchi genbutsu: it is by going to observe the real flow, where it is created and where it stalls, that you identify genuine root causes rather than settling for the symptoms surfaced by dashboards. From this fine-grained understanding, you map value streams end to end (Value Stream Mapping) and design the future-state target toward which you will methodically lead each site.You deploy and stabilise just-in-time mechanisms by rethinking the architecture of flows: setting up kanban loops and pull-based replenishment systems, intelligently sizing supermarkets and decoupling stocks, and levelling the workload through heijunka to absorb demand variability without propagating it upstream. You align cadences with customer takt time so that production and supply breathe to the real rhythm of the market rather than to the jolts of planning.You establish standardised work as the foundation of all improvement, because a process that has not been stabilised cannot be improved sustainably: you formalise logistics standards, make them visible, and turn them into the reference against which every deviation becomes an opportunity for progress. In the same spirit, you roll out visual management and andon-type devices that make any anomaly immediately visible, along with error-proofing mechanisms (poka-yoke) that prevent mistakes from happening rather than correcting them after the fact.Finally, you nurture the continuous-improvement dynamic in all its dimensions, from focused Kaizen events run with shop-floor teams to structured problem solving (PDCA, A3, root-cause analysis) that you instil as a collective reflex. You build the performance-management rituals — from daily routines close to the flow to strategic multi-site reviews — to turn improvement into a shared habit rather than an isolated initiative.The human dimension of the roleBecause the Toyota Production System rests as much on respect for people as on flow optimisation, your success will be measured by your ability to help teams grow. You train, challenge and support site managers and operators as they take ownership of the standards, cultivating one simple but demanding conviction: the people who do the work are best placed to improve it. In doing so, you bring together diverse cultures and organisations around a shared rigour, turning resistance to change into lasting commitment.Who we are looking forWe are deliberately keeping this door wide open. You may come from the automotive world and already live and breathe the TPS — but you may equally have forged your craft in another demanding industry where flows, waste and variability are daily battles: aerospace, pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods, food production, heavy industry, e-commerce logistics or large-scale distribution. What matters far more than the logo on your résumé is what drives you.We are looking for someone who is genuinely hungry — hungry to go to the ground, to understand a problem before solving it, to stabilise what others would rather patch up, and to leave a process measurably better than they found it. Whether you are a seasoned Lean leader ready for a wider European stage, or a high-potential operations talent eager to step up and own a transformation, we want to hear from you provided you bring real drive, intellectual honesty and the desire to make a tangible difference.In practical terms, a higher education background in engineering, logistics or supply chain, hands-on experience leading process improvement with measurable impact, and the ability to operate across borders in fluent English will serve you well. Lean Six Sigma certification or exposure to the Toyota Way is a strong plus rather than a rigid requirement — what is non-negotiable is the mindset.What we offerA high-impact mission at the crossroads of strategy and the shop floor, within a group where operational excellence is not a slogan but a daily discipline. A stimulating European scope, genuine autonomy, and the concrete opportunity to build — site after site — a supply chain you will be proud to say bears your signature. Why choose Projekts to promote your career? Strong Partnerships: Projekts maintains strong partnerships with companies in over 20 countries, offering a unique global perspective for you.Global Expertise: With a global presence, Projekts connects you to best practices and exceptional talents worldwide.Personalized Approach: We commit to understanding the specific needs of each client and candidate, offering tailored solutions to achieve their goals.