Taruna Aurora

Strategic Continuous Improvement Leader with extensive experience in driving Kaizen, Capability Development and Governance across manufacturing and shared services industries. Proven track record of leading operational excellence globally, aligning continuous improvement (CI) programs with enterprise strategy, quality and financial objectives.

Lean Six Sigma Black

Belt certified, with deep expertise in structured problem solving to enhance operational metrics and building continuous improvement ecosystem to deliver value to the customer

Senior Program Manager, Operational Excellence at Amazon Recruiting Shared Services (2022-05 – 2025-04)

• Led a team of Black Belts to design and implement CI strategy for shared services workflows (saved 48 FTEs), liaising with Technology to streamline global delivery
• Led finance reporting, co-managed $1M budget with a focus on resource optimization and cost savings through handling time reductions; Designed Quality Roadmap, introduced dynamic audit model that increased the defect identification by 15%, mentored Green Belts, VOC & Change Management programs
• Managed cost and savings program; defined Variable Cost per Transaction (VCPT) metric, presented white papers to VP to get buy in
• Defined standard work for Kaizens from selection criteria for process deep dives, impact analysis, prioritization framework, outcome measurement and control to event facilitation methodology

Deputy GM, Manufacturing Excellence at Wabtec Transit India (2020-05 – 2022-02)

• Saved 3.5% of Budgeted Hours- implemented 6 kaizen blitzes based on Lean MOST time studies, bottle neck analysis, facilitated Value Stream Mapping, standardized work, Lean Daily Management Systems; Delivered Green Belt Six Sigma program; used DMAIC to reduce defects, variation and mentored candidates for GB certification to deliver $200K savings
• Conducted monthly Gemba with leadership, reviewed KPIs; facilitated the creation and monitoring of the Annual Operating Plan (AOP) across functions, aligning site performance with global divisional growth
• Scaled culture of excellence through grass roots kaizen improvements, delivered 2X kaizens to reduce waste, conducted quarterly and yearly kaizen competition to enhance engagement & replicate improvements. Led SOP, lean, safety audits, trained associates as lean auditors; presented in IMTMA's competition, won QCFI awards

Project Manager at Siemens (2018-01 – 2020-12)

• Spearheaded process transformation by implementing RPA (UiPath) to automate supply chain procurement workflows, reduced cycle time by 70%
• Operationalized KPI visual dashboards to track cycle times, reasons for >SLA cases, performed root cause analysis to fix and enhance processes in collaboration with global engineering teams

Consultant at Alchemy Solutions (2016-01 – 2017-12)

Trained a group of quality engineers and finance team in Green Belt Six Sigma at Dell & ANZ

Corporate Improvement Specialist at Hypertherm (2011-01 – 2016-12)

• Developed & implemented Lean Principles & Standards incorporating applied learning to 5 production and business value streams; conducted, coached 7+ Kaizens to reduce 8 wastes impacting safety, delivery and throughput metrics; Developed Milk run solution for a $30M hub and spoke distribution center, led risk analysis - FMEA sessions for Mechanized operations' $500K production over haul
• Established center of excellence (CoE)for process optimization, conducted monthly Lean audits for process maturity; trained Lean for Leaders; Conducted SWEP/SWOT analysis, collaboratively created vision, mission and strategy for the cross functional Order to Cash team

Earlier Roles at AGCO Corp, Satcon

• Led $2M make vs buy manufacturing strategy project for precision fabricated parts; six sigma black belt project with saving $288K annually; Line Designed one piece flow for contract manufacturer (CM) in China and Fremont to increase output by 50%. Established vendor managed inventory process to save $165K.

M.S. in Manufacturing & Production Systems – University of Wisconsin–Madison

B.E. in Industrial Engineering – Visveswaraiah Technological University