Lean Manufacturing Engineer

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Job Description

About the role

At the core of Takeda Pharmaceuticals’ operations is its Patient Trust Responsibility (PTR) business philosophy, which underscores the company’s commitment to patients, ethical practices, and social responsibility. Takeda places patients at the heart of its work, ensuring that business decisions prioritize patient needs, safety, and well-being while promoting transparency, trust, and accountability.

As part of the Plasma-Derived Therapies business unit, Takeda’s Los Angeles production facility plays a critical role in supplying essential, lifesaving therapeutics to patients globally. The facility is focused on stabilizing production systems and improving productivity.

The Lean Manufacturing Engineer will provide guidance and coaching in strategically important areas, optimize processes, increase productivity, and support the site’s growth strategy. This role helps ensure ongoing safety, product quality, and compliance while optimizing complex processes and systems across the value stream.

The position primarily supports large-scale, automated, multistep batch processes with significant manual operations. The incumbent will analyze processes and systems, make improvement opportunities visible, and drive actions to realize and sustain those improvements, particularly within the production environment.

The role will interpret Takeda’s standard lean operating system, guide its appropriate application with a clear focus on value creation, and collaborate with other sites and global support teams to improve operating-system standards.

How you will contribute

• Use Lean, manufacturing engineering, and industrial engineering tools to advance the site’s transformation objectives.
• Understand the strategic context, current state, and relevant systems to identify opportunities aligned with site strategy.

• Create new analytical models and enhance existing models to generate actionable insights.

• Build organizational support and momentum for key initiatives.

• Lead and coach teams to implement change and develop Lean capabilities.

• Ensure improvement outcomes are achieved, visible, sustained, and integrated into daily operations.

• Connect and collaborate with global, regional, and Operating Unit groups to bring leading practices to the site and share successful site practices with others.

• Enhance existing pull systems and continue replacing push-based processes with flow and pull.

• Champion change and apply strong root-cause problem-solving and continuous-improvement methods.

• Integrate effective organizational change management into every improvement initiative.

• Research, test, and implement process improvements while maintaining safety, quality, and compliance with applicable regulations and standards.

• Play an integral role in planning and executing the 2025 and 2027 production-capacity increases, with a focus on scalability and sustainability.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to address capacity-expansion and operational-excellence challenges.

What you bring to Takeda

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in science, engineering, or another related technical field, and 6+ years of related experience.

• 5+ years of experience deploying and coaching Lean as part of a manufacturing or industrial engineering role.

• Demonstrated passion for challenging the status quo and improving operations.

• Proficiency in manufacturing-system analysis and statistical analysis.

• Strong negotiation, influencing, consultation, and facilitation skills.

• Demonstrated structured, logical, critical, and analytical thinking.

• Confidence coaching, leading, and guiding others.

• Self-motivation and self-direction, with a demonstrated record of results.

• Demonstrated leadership and mentoring skills, including the ability to lead and motivate teams toward business goals.

• Advanced digital and data skills, including visualization tools such as Excel, Power BI, or Qlik Sense; analytical tools such as Minitab, Python, or R Shiny; and exposure to cloud data systems.

• Excellent communication, presentation, and facilitation skills.

• Strong organizational and project-management capabilities, with knowledge of manufacturing processes and continuous-improvement approaches.

• Ability to train others and work effectively with employees at all levels.

• Ability to work extended hours and various shifts as needed.

Preferred:

• Lean certification.

• Experience in the biotechnology or pharmaceutical industry.

• Experience in a process industry.

• Experience in an FDA-regulated environment, Good Manufacturing Practices, and ISO 9001.

• For supervisory positions, 1+ year of supervisory experience.

Core Competencies

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