Operational Excellence Manager Jobs in Illinois

INTRODUCTION

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 115,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

Capital Management, Reliability & Operational Excellence Manager

Working at Abbott

At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow, and learn, care for yourself and family, be your true self and live a full life. You’ll also have access to:

• Career development with an international company where you can grow the career you dream of.
• Employees can qualify for free medical coverage in our Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO medical plan in the next calendar year.
• An excellent retirement savings plan with high employer contribution.
• Tuition reimbursement, the Freedom 2 Save student debt program and FreeU education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.
• A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries around the world and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.
• A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as a best place to work for diversity, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.

THE OPPORTUNITY

This is a full time position that works out of our Abbott Park, IL location in the GES Global Engineering Services division.

The Capital Management, Reliability and Operational Excellence Manager will provide enterprise and site-level leadership to drive asset reliability, and capital replacement effectiveness, and operational excellence while fostering a high-engagement culture aligned with Abbott leadership behaviors. This role integrates capital project execution with reliability engineering, predictive maintenance, and maintenance planning & scheduling to deliver sustainable improvements in safety, quality, cost, and performance.

WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON

• Develop and maintain a long-range capital plan for a large, complex headquarters campus (70+ buildings, 6M+ sq. ft., 3,000+ acres), aligning asset lifecycle strategies with business growth, risk reduction, compliance, and reliability objectives.
• Manage a $50M+ annual capital portfolio focused on infrastructure, utilities, facilities, and critical equipment, ensuring optimal return on investment and risk mitigation.
• Own capital cash-flow forecasting, tracking, and variance management to ensure accuracy, transparency, and financial discipline.
• Lead front-end planning (FEP), business case development, and Requests for Capital Expenditure (RFCE) documentation, ensuring scope clarity, cost certainty, and schedule integrity.
• Define technical requirements, project specifications, and bid packages; lead competitive sourcing, contractor selection, and contract negotiations.
• Provide end-to-end design, engineering, construction, and commissioning oversight, ensuring projects are delivered safely, on time, on budget, and fit for long-term reliability.
• Establish and enforce capital governance, project controls, and risk management processes.
• Drive reliability improvement programs through predictive maintenance, condition-based monitoring, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), and lifecycle asset management principles.
• Embed reliability-centered design standards into capital projects to reduce total cost of ownership and improve equipment availability.
• Partner with maintenance and operations teams to improve planning, scheduling, spare parts strategies, and failure response effectiveness.
• Analyze asset performance data to identify systemic risks, chronic failures, and opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Lead operational excellence initiatives using Lean, Six Sigma, and structured problem-solving methodologies to improve safety, quality, cost, delivery, and uptime.
• Champion change management practices to ensure sustainable adoption of new processes, tools, and ways of working.
• Standardize systems, tools, KPIs, and operating models to drive consistency, visibility, and accountability across the organization.
• Establish performance dashboards and governance routines to track reliability, maintenance effectiveness, capital performance, and operational outcomes.
• Lead and develop high-performing, cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of engagement, accountability, ownership, and continuous learning.
• Partner closely with Operations, Maintenance, Quality, Engineering, Finance, EHS, and external stakeholders to deliver integrated, site-wide results.
• Serve as a trusted advisor on asset health, capital prioritization, risk exposure, and operational readiness.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Operations, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 7+ years in project management.
• 3+ years in operations, OpEx, or reliability leadership.
• Strong background in reliability, predictive maintenance, and maintenance planning & scheduling.
• Proven people leadership and change management experience.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This job description is not an exhaustive statement of duties and does not limit the assignment of additional responsibilities.

DIVISIONAL INFORMATION

General Medical Devices

Our medical devices help more than 10,000 people have healthier hearts, improve quality of life for thousands of people living with chronic pain and movement disorders, and liberate more than 500,000 people with diabetes from routine fingersticks.

CRM

As a global leader in Cardiac Rhythm Technologies, we focus on innovative technologies that can improve the way doctors treat people with heart arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats.

Diabetes

We’re focused on helping people with diabetes manage their health with life-changing products that provide accurate data to drive better-informed decisions. We’re revolutionizing the way people monitor their glucose levels with our new sensing technology.

Vascular

Abbott Vascular provides innovative, minimally invasive, and cost-effective products for the treatment of vascular disease.

Neuromodulation

Our Neuromodulation business includes implantable devices compatible with mobile technology to help people who suffer from chronic pain and movement disorders. These non-opioid therapies allow us to provide interventional pain therapy to patients throughout the pain continuum.

Structural Heart

Structural Heart Business Mission: Why We Exist

Our business purpose is to restore health and improve quality of life by designing and providing device and management solutions for treating structural heart disease.

EP

In Abbott’s Electrophysiology (EP) business, we’re advancing the treatment of heart disease through breakthrough medical technologies in atrial fibrillation, allowing people to restore their health and get on with their lives.

HF

In Abbott’s Heart Failure (HF) business, we’re developing solutions to diagnose, monitor and manage heart failure, allowing people to restore their health and get on with their lives.

Diagnostics

We’re empowering smarter medical and economic decision-making to help transform the way people manage their health at all stages of life. Every day, more than 10 million tests are run on Abbott’s diagnostics instruments, providing lab results for millions of people.

Our Point of Care diagnostic portfolio spans key health and therapeutic areas, including infectious disease, cardiometabolic, informatics, and toxicology.

Our diagnostic solutions are used in hospitals, laboratories, and clinics around the globe. The crucial information derived from our tests, instruments, and informatics systems is often the first step in patient care decision-making for hundreds of health conditions from heart attacks to blood disorders to infectious diseases and cancers.

Our rapid diagnostics solutions are helping address some of the world’s greatest healthcare challenges.

Our molecular division delivers best-in-class innovative testing solutions for people around the world to provide answers to life’s critical health decisions. We help people live full and healthy lives through our accessible, molecular-based solutions.

Nutrition

Our nutrition business develops science-based nutrition products for people of all ages, from helping babies and children grow to keeping adult bodies strong and active. Millions of people around the world count on our leading brands – including Similac®, PediaSure®, Pedialyte®, Ensure®, and Glucerna® – to help them get the nutrients they need to live their healthiest lives.

COMPENSATION

• Base pay for this position is $113,300.00 – $226,700.00. In specific locations, the pay range may vary from the range posted.