{"id":1402165,"url":"https://alion.io/job/covenant-operations-excellence-opex-lead","title":"Operations Excellence (OpEx) Lead","company":{"id":3789852,"name":"Covenant","domain":"covenantindustries.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/covenantindustries","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Comeet","truth_index":null},"role":"Operations","role_family":"Operations","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Grand Prairie, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":72000,"max_usd":167000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1211},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CAPA","optional":false},{"name":"AS9100","optional":true},{"name":"Statistical Process Control","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-09T15:43:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-24T16:27:27Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":45,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":45},"description":"Description\nTitle: Operations Excellence (OpEx) Lead\nLocation: Grand Prairie, Texas\nCOMPANY OVERVIEW\nCovenant is a global defense company headquartered in Washington, D.C., building long-range precision strike weapons for the United States and its allies. Its flagship munition, Anthem, combines heavy payload and long range at a fraction of the cost of comparable legacy systems, with production volumes designed to meet the demands of prolonged conflict. Designed as an end-to-end weapon system that is simple to store, transport, and field, Anthem is produced in the United States, Germany, and Israel. For more information, visit covenant.com\nTHE ROLE\nAs the Operations Excellence (OpEx) Lead, you will play a critical leadership role in establishing and driving operational rigor across Covenant's Grand Prairie manufacturing facility. You will serve as the connection between site leadership and daily plant execution, ensuring that department leaders are aligned to business priorities and that performance is consistently measured, managed, and improved.\nYou will own the development and standardization of manufacturing processes, lead cross-functional continuous improvement initiatives, and establish the operating systems and metrics required to drive safety, quality, delivery, cost, people, and environmental performance. Working closely with Production, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, and site leadership, you will help build a culture of accountability, standardization, and continuous improvement as Covenant scales production.\nWHAT YOU'LL DO\nLead the development, communication, and tracking of the site's annual business plan and operational priorities.\nEstablish and manage site-level Manufacturing Excellence metrics across Safety, People, Quality, Delivery, Cost, and Environment.\nTranslate company strategy into clear operating priorities, measurable goals, and actionable plans for plant leadership.\nServe as the business owner for manufacturing process documentation, standards, and requirements.\nDevelop, document, implement, and continuously improve standardized manufacturing processes and operating procedures.\nEstablish standards for built-in quality, short lead times, workplace organization, 5S, standard work, and employee engagement.\nLead cross-functional continuous improvement initiatives focused on Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, and operational efficiency.\nIdentify bottlenecks, process inefficiencies, and recurring operational issues and drive structured problem-solving efforts.\nDevelop and execute internal audit programs to validate adherence to manufacturing processes, requirements, and operating standards.\nPartner closely with the Quality Assurance Leader to ensure manufacturing processes meet ISO and other applicable regulatory requirements.\nTrack corrective actions and ensure process improvements are implemented, sustained, and incorporated into standard work.\nDrive improvements in production schedule adherence, throughput, labor efficiency, and overall plant performance.\nEstablish visual management systems, performance dashboards, and operating reviews to create clear accountability across the facility.\nFacilitate regular performance reviews with Department Heads and site leadership.\nCoach leaders and teams on Lean principles, root-cause analysis, standard work, and continuous improvement methodologies.\nEnsure manufacturing requirements and processes are clearly documented, communicated, and consistently executed.\nHelp establish the operating cadence, governance, and management systems required to scale the Grand Prairie facility.\nREQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS\nBachelor's degree in Engineering, Operations, Manufacturing, Business, or a related field.\n10+ years of experience in manufacturing, operations, or industrial environments.\nSignificant experience leading continuous improvement and operational excellence initiatives within a manufacturing environment.\nProven experience developing, documenting, implementing, and auditing manufacturing processes and requirements.\nStrong understanding of Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, 5S, standard work, and structured problem-solving methodologies.\nExperience developing and managing manufacturing KPIs and performance management systems.\nExperience conducting internal process audits and driving corrective and preventive actions.\nStrong analytical skills with the ability to use operational data to identify problems, prioritize opportunities, and drive measurable improvements.\nDemonstrated ability to influence and align cross-functional leaders without relying solely on direct authority.\nExcellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to create clear and effective process documentation.\nHighly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.\nWillingness to work onsite in Grand Prairie, Texas.\nU.S. Person status required.\nPREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS\nLean Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt, or equivalent certification.\nExperience launching or scaling a new manufacturing facility or production operation.\nExperience in aerospace, defense, automotive, robotics, or other highly regulated manufacturing environments.\nExperience working within ISO 9001, AS9100, or similar quality management systems.\nExperience developing manufacturing operating systems, annual operating plans, or Manufacturing Excellence Plans.\nExperience with ERP, MES, manufacturing analytics, or production management systems.\nExperience leading high-rate or high-volume manufacturing operations.\nExperience with value stream mapping, Kaizen, root-cause analysis, process capability, and statistical process control.\nExperience working in a high-growth company where processes and operating systems are being built from the ground up.\nWHAT MAKES YOU SUCCESSFUL\nYou turn strategy into execution and ensure the plant's priorities are reflected in what happens on the manufacturing floor.\nYou bring structure and discipline to complex manufacturing environments without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.\nYou use data to identify problems, prioritize opportunities, and measure whether improvements actually work.\nYou are comfortable challenging established ways of working and driving meaningful change across an organization.\nYou build alignment across leaders and hold teams accountable to measurable outcomes.\nYou understand that operational excellence is not a one-time project-it is a daily operating discipline.\nYou are equally comfortable in a leadership meeting, analyzing performance data, auditing a process, or working directly with teams on the factory floor.\nYou have a strong bias toward action and follow improvements through from identifying a problem to implementing and sustaining the solution.\nYou thrive in environments where there is significant ambiguity, rapid growth, and a need to build scalable manufacturing processes from the ground up.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6925,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Missiles","Defense Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-28T16:09:34Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":29,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.647,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":44,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/covenant-operations-excellence-opex-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/covenant-operations-excellence-opex-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-24T17:35:15Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid 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