Tempo Process Engineer

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next-level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

The Home Chef Ready to Heat (RTH) Process Engineer is responsible for ensuring site readiness of RTH product expansions, standardizing and improving RTH-specific improvement processes, and being the point of contact for RTH product packaging improvements. The RTH Process Engineer will partner closely with cross-functional peers both corporately and at the plant level to complete project work in support of the expansion of the Tempo brand and complete ad hoc assignments to support the Sr. Manager of New Customer Growth Continuous Improvement.

Detailed Responsibilities

Coordination and execution of site openings and RTH product expansions, working with RTH site leadership for planning and preparedness

• Aid plant and corporate teams in scoping out new initiatives to support rolling out new product lines, increasing capacity and complexity, and improving metric performance while providing plant teams with the ownership to implement those initiatives and providing appropriate support as needed.
• Build and maintain roadmap for new RTH initiatives being rolled out to the site from corporate business partners
• Assist plant leaders and corporate stakeholders in following a stage gate process for new product launches to ensure proper change management
• Advocate for plant teams to corporate partners

Develop RTH network SOPs for uniformity and continuously improve RTH processes

• Ensure standard operating procedures exist for all critical RTH tasks and align processes across all fulfillment sites
• Act as a liaison between fulfillment centers to ensure that the best of Home Chef’s knowledge/ processes are communicated between facilities and works to oversee initiatives to streamline across facilities where appropriate
• Using performance metrics, evaluate the success of Ready to Heat processes and develop and implement continuous improvement initiatives

Partners cross functionally to build out learnings across all machines used in RTH processes to create proactive actions to increase OEE.

• Builds a strong understanding of all RTH machines to build testing plans to increase performance.
• Creates strong partnerships with plant teams to create, launch and standardize Machine Operator training and maintenance PM plans.
• Track, analyze and report on machine performance to drive operational improvements
• Identify, propose and implement new automation within the RTH process to improve operations and increase capabilities
• Evaluates and optimizes product design in terms of tray seal performance, box packaging and ice logic performance, and other characteristics. Work with corporate stakeholders to successfully drive improvements

This position requires at least  50% travel. 

Qualifications

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed for this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• Completion of a four-year degree program in a related field: STEM degree such as Industrial Engineering and 1-2 years of experience in operations strongly preferred
• Experience in food manufacturing is preferred. Strong candidates would have experience in supply chain, plant operations, or operations excellence roles
• Exceptional communication with demonstrated ability to drive results, manage conflict, achieve alignment, and collaboration amongst cross functional teams and with external stakeholders
• Excellent project management ability, with experience overseeing and prioritizing among multiple workstreams, and facilitating problem-solving amongst diverse stakeholders 
• Must be willing and able to accommodate up to 50% travel to the fulfillment centers
• Strong analytical skills required, with experience using Excel to build models and demonstrate findings to partners
• Successful candidate must be high energy, have strong people skills, demonstrated  history of being an influential partner, and have a strong history of ownership and flexibility. They are willing to take on any project, large or small, and the words ‘that’s not in my job description’ are not in their vocabulary.
• Ideal candidate has a strategic mindset, with the ability to see the big picture as well as diving into the weeds when necessary.

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