Manager of Industrial Performance – Lean Supply Chain, Operations Improvement Team

Jon Stephends

Education: University of Wisconsin at Madison, Industrial Engineering, 2005

Jon Stephens leads the Lean Manufacturing and Supply Chain pilot program for Nestlé USA. Lean, as it is called in the industry, is a business philosophy built around the elimination of “waste” through building a problem-solving culture. In his day-to-day work, this means John is constantly working on operational improvement, and helping associates on the plant floor. With his help, they work more quickly and with less stress—which makes Nestlé more efficient, and his job very rewarding.

Can you tell us about your career path so far at Nestlé?
I was recruited out of school by Nestlé into their Operations Management Trainee (OMT) program, and began my career at a Nestlé Prepared Foods plant in South Carolina. After completing the OMT program, I spent about a year as a production supervisor over a high speed retail line. Then I started to look for a new challenge, so I applied to the Operations Improvement Team (OIT) based in California. Recently I have been promoted to manager within the OIT group, and now my focus is on developing Lean manufacturing and supply chain competencies.

What is the best part about your job?
That I get to travel.  I love to see new factories, learn new processes, and meet new people. To date I’ve been able to visit 22 Nestlé  facilities as well as its world headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland.

What’s something about Nestlé that others may not know?
All my friends automatically think of chocolate chips and candy bars when I tell them I work at Nestlé. But when you really look at Nestlé, it’s the world’s largest food company with 250,000 employees, and hundreds of brands—including Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, Gerber baby food, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Purina pet food, a slew of bottled water brands, and the list goes on.

Why do you think Nestlé  was ranked as a top employer?
My opinion is that a top employer is top because of the people.  At Nestlé, we are very family-oriented, and there is a lot of employee support, especially for upward mobility. I’ve been here two years and I’ve had three promotions. But ultimately what keeps me coming back everyday is the people.

What’s the most fun project you’ve done?
Our “kaizen” events with Lean. In Japanese, kaizen means rapid improvement. For these events, we go into factories and work intensely for 2 to 5 days to resolve a specific problem that has been plaguing the factory for years. For example, one factory was having a problem with a shipper—he was sending extra product and we were holding onto it, which was creating some issues. . Through kaizen we worked with the supplier so we were one team, instead of two companies with two agendas, and solved the problem.