Continuous Improvement Manager

Company Overview:
Coherent Corp., named to Forbes' 2026 America's Best Companies, is a global leader in the datacenter and communications industries. Headquartered in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, USA, and founded in 1971, Coherent operates in over 20 countries worldwide. Since entering Vietnam in 2005, Coherent has expanded to more than 3,200 employees across Ho Chi Minh (VSIP1), Dong Nai (Nhon Trach 1), Hanoi, and Bac Ninh (Yen Phong IP). As part of our global growth strategy and commitment to developing local talent, we aim to create over 8,000 new job opportunities in Vietnam within the next five years through hundreds of millions of dollars in investment projects.
Work Location:
- VSIP1 (HCMC, formerly Binh Duong)
BASIC FUNCTION OF THE JOB :
This job is to direct and oversee the all the daily operations of CI Team for a designated plants by providing leadership as the continuous process, quality improvement subject expert matter; acting as the continuous improvement confidant to top management, coordinates CI activities in the organization and leads team events; developing project theme and team in accordance with the company's mission on elimination of waste, decreasing inventory, and increasing throughput to make sure that company objective achieves optimistically.
This role is to assess, monitor, and enhance Manufacturing performance for the organisation and analyse current practices and develop business process improvements as well as implement changes in workflows, structures, and teams to ensure continuous performance.
This role is to direct and oversee all the automation and digitalisation of the designated plant to support the strategic development direction of the company of Industrial 4.0 (The Fourth Industrial Revolution)
ContinuousI mprovement Management
- Works with top management to identify key system and process measures.
- Assists top management in identifying improvement opportunities, project selection, and project scope.
- Works with top management to identify project leaders and cross-functional team members.
- Assists top management in improving key process measures using Continuous Improvement (CI) tools such as Lean, Six Sigma, and CQI.
- Supports top management in driving CI initiatives through organizational design and prioritization aligned with business strategies.
- Schedules and manages DMAIC tollgate reviews to ensure projects meet targets and timelines.
- Works closely with CI project leaders to ensure projects achieve financial targets and are completed on schedule.
- Monitors departmental KPI objectives, Continuous Improvement activities, and dashboard visualizations to ensure they are current and up to date through CI Champions.
- Supports project leaders in coaching team members on CI tools (Lean, Six Sigma, Minitab, problem-solving methodologies) and promotes proactive tools to identify issues before they occur.
- Develops and maintains a system for collecting improvement ideas, including idea submission, screening, implementation, and evaluation.
- Creates recognition programs to reward employees from idea generation through successful project completion.
- Identifies continuous improvement opportunities across manufacturing operations by routinely analyzing processes, prioritizing improvement initiatives, and selecting projects that leverage Lean Six Sigma tools to improve key site KPIs.
- Facilitates advanced problem-solving and root cause analysis for improvement opportunities, leading to sustainable solutions.
- Promotes the use of data and performance metrics to identify improvement opportunities and support problem-solving activities.
Industrial 4.0 Strategic Plan Development & Implementation
- Direct and oversee the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of strategic plans for digitalization and automation to support the organization's smart enterprise development.
- Drive the development and enhancement of the company's data visualization capabilities using existing systems and new technologies such as Power BI.
- Lead the adoption of agile, data-driven, and digital solutions to address human factors that impact the organization's ability to achieve its strategic objectives.
- Develop the overall digital transformation strategy and detailed implementation plans covering the full lifecycle of technical deployments and new technology initiatives using the company's methodologies and tools.
- Lead the team responsible for designing and executing user acceptance campaigns for technical implementations, digitalization projects, and emerging technology initiatives.
- Conduct assessments of organizational culture, performance, and change readiness while leading teams to develop and implement digital solutions and data visualization tools for internal and external stakeholders.
Supervision, Management and Leadership
- Ensure the team is adequately staffed, motivated, inspired, engaged, and empowered to deliver high and sustainable performance in a dynamic business environment while maintaining a cost structure aligned with organizational and market realities.
- Ensure the right people are placed in the right roles by consistently applying effective interview, selection, and hiring methodologies throughout the organization.
- Foster a continuous learning environment by ensuring team members receive appropriate training and development to meet both short-term and long-term organizational objectives.
- Ensure the Performance Management Process is fully implemented, with meaningful stretch goals for all employees, ongoing developmental feedback, and 100% on-time completion of performance reviews.
- Promote effective two-way communication by maintaining open, transparent, and active communication channels across the organization.
- Ensure a safe, clean, and organized workplace by complying with all Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S) policies and procedures, while fostering a culture that believes all workplace accidents are preventable.