Role Purpose:

The Head of Operational Excellence will be responsible for driving operational scalability, productivity, cost efficiency, technology adoption, engineering excellence and transformation across the laboratory operations network.

The role will have four broad areas of ownership:

- Engineering & Technology

- Projects & Network Expansion

- Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement

- Central Operations Performance Management

The incumbent will work closely with Operations, Quality, Technology, Procurement, Finance, Commercial and other cross-functional teams to identify opportunities, develop solutions and drive end-to-end implementation with measurable business impact.

The ideal candidate should be a data-driven transformation leader who can operate at both strategic and execution levels and build scalable operating systems for a rapidly growing diagnostics organization.

Key Responsibilities:

A. Engineering & Technology:

- Lead the engineering function supporting laboratory operations across the network.

- Drive equipment uptime, reliability, preventive maintenance and breakdown management.

- Establish robust systems for preventive and predictive maintenance.

- Develop asset lifecycle management and equipment replacement strategies.

- Monitor equipment utilization, downtime, maintenance cost and reliability.

- Evaluate and recommend new laboratory platforms, analysers, automation solutions and technologies.

- Lead technical and operational evaluation of new technologies, including technical suitability, capacity, scalability, productivity, Total Cost of Ownership, ROI/payback and integration requirements.

- Explore emerging technologies in laboratory automation, robotics, AI, digitalization and diagnostics.

- Develop technology roadmaps aligned with business growth and future operational requirements.

- Identify opportunities to automate manual and repetitive processes.

B. Projects & Network Expansion:

- Lead end-to-end execution of new laboratory setup projects.

- Manage expansion and capacity enhancement projects across existing laboratories.

- Develop project plans covering capacity, infrastructure, equipment, technology, manpower, budget, timelines and regulatory/quality requirements.

- Establish project governance, milestones, review mechanisms and escalation processes.

- Ensure projects are delivered within agreed timeline, budget, quality and operational requirements.

- Coordinate multiple internal and external stakeholders for project execution.

- Develop standardized lab setup and expansion playbooks to improve speed and consistency of future projects.

- Identify opportunities to reduce CAPEX, project implementation timelines, infrastructure requirements and project complexity.

- Ensure smooth transition from project implementation to stable operations.

C. Operational Excellence:

- Build and lead the Operational Excellence/Continuous Improvement agenda across the organization.

- Identify opportunities to improve productivity, cost of operations, turnaround time, capacity utilization, process efficiency, manpower productivity, equipment utilization, reagent/consumable utilization and quality.

- Drive structured improvement methodologies including Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, Root Cause Analysis, Process Re-engineering and Standardization.

- Identify high-impact improvement opportunities and convert them into structured projects.

- Lead cross-functional improvement initiatives with clearly defined baseline, target, action plan and financial impact.

- Build a culture of continuous improvement and data-driven problem solving.

- Identify best practices across the network and drive their replication.

- Ensure that improvements are sustained through appropriate processes, systems and governance.

D. Central Operations & Performance Management:

- Establish a centralized Operations Performance Management framework.

- Define and monitor critical KPIs across the laboratory network.

- Develop dashboards and mechanisms for regular/real-time monitoring of operational performance.

- Monitor key parameters including sample volumes, capacity utilization, TAT/ATAT, productivity, equipment utilization, equipment downtime, manpower productivity, cost per test, reagent consumption, reagent wastage, consumable utilization, quality indicators, complaint rates, pending workload and process adherence.

- Identify deviations and emerging operational risks proactively.

- Establish a structured Gap Identification-RCA-Action Plan-Closure-Sustainability mechanism.

- Highlight critical operational gaps to senior leadership with clear data-backed recommendations.

- Establish performance benchmarks across different laboratories/operating units.

- Drive performance improvement through regular reviews and targeted interventions.

E. Data Analytics & Business Intelligence:

- Establish a strong data-driven operating culture across Operations.

- Analyse large and complex operational datasets to identify trends, bottlenecks, capacity constraints, productivity gaps, cost drivers, process inefficiencies and improvement opportunities.

- Develop analytical models for capacity planning, productivity, cost and resource utilization.

- Convert operational data into actionable insights for business and operations leaders.

- Build dashboards for senior management to provide visibility into critical operational KPIs.

- Develop early-warning mechanisms to identify potential operational failures before they impact service levels.

- Partner with Technology/Data teams to automate operational reporting and analytics.

- Use data to support business cases, technology selection, CAPEX decisions and transformation initiatives.

F. Cost & Productivity Improvement:

- Drive organization-wide initiatives to improve operational cost and productivity.

- Identify opportunities for reduction in reagent wastage, consumable consumption, equipment operating costs, maintenance costs, energy costs, manpower cost, cost per test and process-related losses.

- Build business cases with quantified financial benefits.

- Track projected vs. realized savings.

- Establish mechanisms to ensure savings are sustained.

- Partner with Finance to validate financial impact of improvement initiatives.

- Identify opportunities to improve asset utilization and reduce avoidable CAPEX.

G. Strategic Capacity Planning:

- Work with Operations leadership to develop a long-term capacity and capability roadmap.

- Forecast future capacity requirements based on sample-volume growth.

- Identify requirements for new laboratories, existing laboratory expansion, equipment, automation, infrastructure, manpower and technology.

- Develop scalable operating models capable of supporting significant future volume growth.

Mandatory Qualifications & Experience:

Education:

- MBA from a Tier-1 management institute and/or Engineering degree from a Tier-1 engineering institute.

Experience:

- 7 - 11 years of overall professional experience.

- Significant experience in one or more of: Operational Excellence, Central Operations, Operations Head, Large-scale Project Management.