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Lean Thinking and the Amazon Kindle

I receive emails from recruiters – frequently.  So, as a favor to them, I am posting a job for your interest: the hiring company is Amazon.com.

Below is one job description and contact information, but if you go to the Amazon.com website, there are over 50 open positions looking for people with experience in Lean Thinking and Six Sigma.

A Footnote: Incidentally, Apple is also looking for many people with Lean experience to be on the iPhone and iPod teams.  Just go to their site and poke around.

Director, Product Quality, Amazon Kindle

Our client, Lab126, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, develops and manufactures highly engaging and innovative consumer-centric electronic product solutions. The business has grown rapidly in size, scale and scope but still retains, at heart, the start-up mentality which has fueled its wild success.

But this outsized growth rate has not yet allowed for the creation of many of the systems, process and procedures (and their functional leadership) so vital to support the company’s continued advancement into new products and global markets. Hence this new position, Director, Product Quality.

Why You Want This!

• You crave the excitement of working with the visionary team which created the hottest consumer electronics gadget of the century. This innovative device, in its various iterations, has completely sold out-of- stock during the last two Christmas shopping seasons. All signs point to yet another blow-out performance in 2009. And, there’s more to come! What recession?
• You are obsessed with excellence and quality. This company is already attaining a level of world-class quality metrics that other consumer electronics makers would die for. Your mission: take your passion for quality and make it even better!
• You thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial start-up environment where your daily decisions make a direct, clearly visible impact on the operational and financial performance of the company. You relentlessly pursue your personal and professional expectations for performance and results.
• You hunger for meaningful work with an exceptionally talented team, where it’s all about clear and open communication, genuine collaboration, and exceeding customer expectations – across the whole business.

Your Role

Define, lead and take ownership of the product quality organization. Develop world-class quality thinking and the programs, systems, principles and processes through which quality manifests itself throughout the company. The results of this effort will be threefold: exceed customer expectations in every way; reduce total warranty costs across all product lines, and; build the culture and supporting structures to ensure continuous improvement in both.

The position will be based in Cupertino, CA (Silicon Valley), California and will report remotely to the company’s Vice President, Global Supply Chain, who is based in Hong Kong. All product design, development and support functions are performed in California, while manufacturing is currently done on a contract basis in Shenzhen, China.  Lab126, our client is the wholly-owned subsidiary of highly successful and profitable Fortune 500 parent company Amazon.com.

What You Bring to the Table

• You have demonstrated both deep-dive, hands-on experience in shop-floor quality problem solving, and 30k-foot strategic-level quality issues perspective and sophistication.
• You have demonstrated the ability to rapidly and scientifically assess and deal with day-to-day quality correction, while simultaneously anticipating, developing and implementing the quality philosophies, infrastructure, and practices critical to the company’s future success.
• You offer a proven track record driving operational excellence and continuous improvement initiatives, focused on product quality, utilizing Lean Manufacturing (Toyota Production System) and Six Sigma methodologies.
• You have outstanding communications skills. This enables you to interact with senior management executives and influence their decision-making, as well as to effectively partner with other exceptionally talented people broadly across the organization.
• You have recently worked in a high-volume 3C (computer, communication, consumer), fast-moving product lifecycle electronics organization and have extensive on-the-ground experience in mainland China.
• Chances are your resume will include the names of other word-class consumer electronics companies such as Apple, Palm, Philips, Sony, Nintendo, Nokia, Cisco and more.

A Bit More Information

Travel – Because even the best video communications technology has its limitations, the Director, Product Quality should expect to travel frequently, at times on very short notice, to China.

Compensation – Excellent base salary, sign-on bonus and restricted stock units (RSUs). Equity awards consist of stock in our client’s parent company and are historically a major, continuing preferred form of executive compensation.

Contact Information

+1 (847) 304-5301 direct
resume@LeanRecruiter.com
az@LeanRecruiter.com

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