Job Description

Location : Cookstown
Job Ref: UDF/2025/547
Employment : Full-Time Permanent
Closing Date : 08 December 2025 05:00 pm

Dale Farm Cooperative is a UK dairy farmer co-operative owned by over 1200 dairy farmers who supply us with fresh milk. Dale Farm has operations throughout the UK and Ireland producing and distributing a wide range of dairy products which it sells across the UK and Ireland as well as exporting to over 45 countries worldwide.


At Dale Farm virtually every career discipline is represented in our workforce, from production, engineering and distribution, to sales & marketing and food technology/quality assurance, to Finance, HR and IT through to general management. Our standards are high and when we recruit we are looking for those with energy and drive, who are keen for responsibility and motivated to succeed with a record of achievement and with the potential to develop as the company grows.

Culture

Our culture is based on setting best in class standards, working to-wards and delivering on committed objectives, striving for constant improvement and involving everyone in the company. We strive to develop our people and harness everyone's contribution to deliver a winning team.

Equal Opportunities

The company is an Equal Opportunities employer and is committed to a safe, inclusive and relationship based workspace.

Benefits

In return, we offer a high degree of responsibility, plenty of challenge, good opportunities for learning and personal development and rewarding benefit packages, all within a fast moving and results oriented environment.

Retail Process Improvement Manager

This year we completed a 70m capital expenditure at our Dunmanbridge site, boosting cheddar production by 20,000 tonnes and enabling an annual capacity of 85,000 tonnes.


This marked one of the largest ever single investments by a Northern Ireland agri-food company and has created the largest single site cheddar manufacturer in Europe. As well as improving and replacing existing site-wide services and utilities, the expansion also included a new high speed automated cheese slicing line, increased warehouse footprint and investment in new patented products and processes.

The Role

Our retail plant is central to the manufacturing operations at Dunmanbridge. In collaboration with the operations and group project team, this new position will be pivotal in shaping the future of the facility, delivering world-class manufacturing and operational excellence.


We are seeking a dynamic, ambitious individual to lead improvements, optimise performance and advance our operations through the delivery of capital investment projects

Key Responsibilities

Process Analysis and Optimisation

- Conduct an in-depth analysis of retail production lines, material flows, including the planning and scheduling activity to identify opportunities to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve product quality.

Strategic Capital projects

- Fulfil the role of Site Project Leader, working alongside the Group Project Engineering Manager and the assigned Project Team, to design the optimal retail manufacturing facility to meet current and future customer requirements aligned to our growth ambitions.

Design Implement and Commissioning of Capital projects.

+ Act as the key interface between the project team and operations team ensuring effectively and timely communication to all stakeholders on site and within the business.
+ Assist with defining the scope for effective delivery at each stage of the project.
+ Ensure strong business linkage with Commercial, Procurement and the Packaging Technologist to ensure any Capital projects is integral with other business initiatives, for example -sustainable packaging, packaging weight reduction, one piece case.
+ Understand full end to end of the future process including impact and compliance requirements on other functions such as safety, quality and engineering.
+ Understand the portfolio of SKU's & Packaging Formats and consider unique elements of each to ensure optimal manufacturing efficiency.
+ Working with finance control have a detailed understanding of the manufacturing future state cost versus the current operations.
+ Understand latest technological innovations that will deliver system improvements and controls to deliver consistent product quality and right first time.

Assume direct management of the Product Commissioning Phase for new Line start-ups, co-ordinating the planning between the Project PM, Commissioning Teams, Retail Management, Production & Engineering Teams, to ensure a timely handover between the Project & the Site can be achieved. Stress and challenge test end deliverables against URS and take responsibility for Factory Acceptance Testing. Chair cross functional steering meetings tracking actions and monitor progress to agreed timelines. Foresee potential operational bottlenecks and use good manufacturing principles to engineer out from inception. Work closely with the planning and scheduling team to ensure clear understanding of capacity utilisation and optimisation across all sku configurations. Ensure effective business continuity plans across all manufacturing lines. Co-ordinate training of personnel on new equipment during the commissioning and ramp up phase of the project. Leverage process improvement methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma to collect, analyse and interpret operational and performance data to uncover trends and areas for improvement. Collaborate with the business improvement team to understand the interdependencies of the digitalisation transformation with the capital project. Support the operation team to embed operational excellence deployment across the site. Working closely with cross functional teams, stakeholders and employees to gather insights, implement changes and facilitate training on new processes.

About the Person

Essential Criteria:

5 yrs experience of high-speed consumer goods operations with relevant end to end supply chain experience. Proven experience of implementing, measuring and achieving KPIs by driving best practice. Evidence strong leadership and excellent interpersonal skills Problem Solving - aptitude for identifying root causes off inefficiencies and developing effective solutions. Good understanding of Process improvement methodologies Expertise in frameworks like Lean, Six Sigma, and other continuous improvement techniques Proficient I.T. skills including Microsoft Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint and other tools that support process analysis and optimisation. Project Management ability to manage process improvement projects from conception to completion. Be highly organised, with excellent written and verbal communication a to work effectively with diverse teams and stakeholders

Learn more about the company and to apply online dalefarm.co.uk/careers

Completed application forms must be received online on or before

Monday 8th December 2025

Only applications from EU Nationals or those with a valid permit to work in the UK will be accepted.

We are an equal opportunities employer





AMBITION | CURIOSITY | TEAMWORK | POSITIVITY | RESOLVE | ACCOUNTABILITY