Continuous Improvement officer

<4>Business Area: Distribution <4>Workplace Type: On-site <4>Location - Town / City: Cape Town < Job Description: > At Truworths, we challenge our teams to constantly improve how we operate — from the DC floor to the boardroom. This role sits at the centre of that effort in our Distribution Centre environment. The Continuous Improvement Officer is an execution-focused role responsible for driving day-to-day operational improvements across the DC. You will apply Lean tools, support supervisors with structured improvement plans, track operational performance metrics, and lead small-scale CI initiatives from identification through to implementation. This role requires strong floor presence, operational credibility, and the ability to turn data and observation into actionable improvements. <4>Key Responsibilities: Lead and facilitate Kaizen events, 5S programmes, and standard work initiatives across DC functions (receiving, put-away, picking, audit, shipping). Apply Lean tools including 5S, visual management, standard work documentation, and root cause analysis (5 Whys, fishbone) to identify and resolve inefficiencies. Document current-state and future-state process maps for improvement projects. Support supervisors in drafting and implementing floor-level improvement plans. Drive and sustain a culture of continuous improvement at team and supervisor level. Identify performance trends and surface root causes to the Operations Manager with clear supporting data. Maintain an improvement register documenting each initiative: baseline measurement, change implemented, and quantified outcome. This register is a required output and forms part of performance assessment. Monitor productivity at team and individual level in order to flag anomalies to operations managers with supporting data. Participate in time observations to support productivity benchmarking. Provide input to scheduling and staffing planning by identifying bottlenecks or capacity constraints visible from improvement activity. Write and maintain SOPs for processes that have been improved or standardised. Train DC staff and supervisors on new or revised processes and standards. Support supervisors with performance coaching tools and structured feedback frameworks for improvement-related behaviour change. Monitor adoption and compliance with new SOPs; escalate persistent non-adoption to the Operations Manager. Extract and manipulate data from the WMS/WES/APEX/BI to support improvement analysis. Assist with user-level testing of system changes prior to deployment, specifically testing against operational processes. Flag process-system misalignments to the Operations Manager and Systems Administrator for resolution. <4>Qualifications and Experience: National Diploma or Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Industrial Engineering Technology, or Operations Management. Lean / Six Sigma Green Belt (desirable, not required at entry). 3–5 years in a Distribution Centre, warehouse, or logistics operations environment. Demonstrated exposure to Lean tools (5S, standard work, Kaizen, visual management) in a live operational setting. Experience supporting or coaching supervisors in an operations improvement context. Advanced Excel: pivot tables, VLOOKUP-level data manipulation, and basic performance tracking tools. Working familiarity with at least one WMS platform (user-level access; not configuration or development). Worked with reporting tools such as Apex/PowerBI. MS Office proficiency. <4>Competencies: Able to work alongside and influence warehouse floor staff and supervisors in a high-pressure, shift-based environment. Can extract meaning from operational data, identify patterns in KPI trends, and present a clear improvement case to an operations manager without over-engineering the analysis. Translates improvement findings into plain language. Can write a usable SOP, brief a supervisor group, and support floor staff through a process change without causing resistance or confusion.