Industrial Engineer, Understand & Imagine

Overview

The Production Design Group within Chick-fil-A, Inc. engineers innovative restaurant system solutions to enable profitable growth for 2,200 restaurants.

 

The Industrial Engineer role within the Understand/Imagine group of Production Design will work within a team of three engineers that will drive new food-production equipment, systems, and process projects from conception to implementation. The role specifically has two vital tasks in Chick-fil-A’s Innovation process:

 

• Understanding problems the chain will face in speed, space, complexity, capacity, and Team Member experience.
• Imagining possible solutions to the problems, converging on the most valuable ones.

 

When the team's projects are outside the Understand/Imagine phases, this engineer is expected to continue to contribute to a project's success by leveraging his or her unique and versatile abilities to turn ideas into prototypes, validate project performance in Chick-fil-A's restaurants, and collaborate with a larger project team to launch solutions that deliver business value to the organization.

 

This engineer needs to be skilled and comfortable influencing and communicating to cross-functional partners at all levels of the organization. A chief contribution will be to utilize disciplined principles of engineering analysis, problem-solving, and innovative design. Position must be able to understand current state-of-the art food-industry equipment designs and apply innovative, forward-thinking design initiative prior to the need being explicitly stated or identified.

 

Our Flexible Future model offers a healthy mix of working in person and virtually, strengthening key elements of the Chick-fil-A culture by fostering collaboration and community.

Responsibilities

• Directly lead new equipment design and development projects through the Understand/Imagine phases
• Contribute to projects when they are outside the Understand/Imagine phases
• Provide leadership and influence to a broad range of cross-functional partners
• Identify barriers, bottlenecks, and pain points to continued profitable growth, prioritize problems to solve, and imagine robust solutions to meet business objectives.
• Lead collaboration with cross-functional teams to ensure that projects meet all business needs and are successfully executed within constraints
• Communicate well with and influence non-technical business disciplines through the explanation and adoption of technology as applied to menu and operational strategies
• Serve multiple up and downstream partners to accomplish goals of varied stakeholders.
• Candidate will be required to leverage their skills as an individual contributor and in a technical leadership capacity
• Will be responsible for aligning strategy and work output with various cross-functional disciplines including, but not limited to, other teams within Production Design, Restaurant Development, Supply Chain, Kitchen Design, Culinary Commercialization, and Field Ops

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in an Engineering Discipline (Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial) or Operations Management
• At least 2-3 years of work experience in one of the following areas: Lean, IE, or Process Engineering
• Proven ability to provide technical leadership to mentor peers
• Ability to work with wide latitude for unreviewed action or decision on most outcomes
• Proficiency in MS Office products (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
• Advanced project management skills demonstrated
• Excellent communication, relational, and team skills to enable interaction with restaurant team members, as well as corporate peers and leaders
• Knowledge to produce and maintain technical specification documents on both process and equipment improvement opportunities
• Experience leading cross-functional teams that include both technical and non-technical aptitudes
• Ability to move work forward in an environment of urgency
• Experience with and an aptitude toward work involving applied research to explore and define technically vague concepts with the ability to apply them to executable projects

Preferred Qualifications

• Master of Science in an Engineering Discipline (Mechanical, Industrial) or MBA
• Lean or Six Sigma Certification
• Prior experience in a food processing environment
• Experience with an engineering team in a professional environment

Minimum Years of Experience

2

Travel Requirements

20%

Required Level of Education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred Level of Education

Masters Degree

Major/Concentration

Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial) or Operations Management