2025 Graduate Programme
Onsite Working

Tirlán
Tirlán, is a world-class food and nutrition co-operative, with a diverse portfolio of quality ingredients, leading consumer and agri brands.

Tirlán owns leading brands such as Avonmore, Kilmeaden Cheese, Millac, Solmiko, Truly Grass Fed, Premier Milk, Wexford, mymilkman.ie and GAIN Animal Nutrition.

We nurture a talented team across Ireland, the US, MEA and China, delivering annual revenues of over €3 billion, and over 2,300 people to manage our network of 11 processing plants and 52 agri branches. Our purpose is to nourish the world, while safeguarding our environment for future generations.

Role Profile
Our Graduate Programme is designed to take you through a series of real-world learning experiences, helping you build confidence in your abilities, and flourish in your career.

We are looking for people who care about the world and each other, who want to build their career with likeminded and passionate people. So if you want a career where you can truly make a difference, then we’d like to hear from you!

Tirlán is offering a unique opportunity for a graduate to join our Business Excellence team as a Business Excellence Associate. This role will be onsite.

Located in our facility in Virginia, this role reports to the Business Excellence Manager and is an exciting opportunity to gain rich experience in developing, leading, and embedding a culture of Lean across our operations. This graduate will be part of our passionate and engaged team of Lean Practitioners which support our operations across Ireland.

Responsibilities

• Providing leadership, guidance and support in operational excellence and continuously improving the LEAN maturity of the site.
• Contributing to the development of strategy focused on embedding a culture of operational excellence and continuous improvement across Tirlan.
• Ensuring that the site daily management system (3M), KPI reviews and continuous improvement forums are embedded at all levels of the site, including putting in place health check to assess effectiveness & drive site wide improvements to achieve business targets.
• Driving and embedding our central Business Excellence strategy, culture, philosophies, tools & techniques across the site.
• Supporting the provision of relevant Continuous Improvement training & development programs for all Ballyragget staff to ensure effective implementation & daily practice of continuous improvement / Lean techniques.
• Assisting the RCA process and ensuring effectiveness and excellence in problem solving.
• Implementing standardisation for all business-critical processes (Business KPI’s, RCA, CI, and Standard Work) across the site.
• Preforming systematic ongoing site wide performance analysis, identifying areas of opportunity, improvement & driving / supporting implementation of improvements.
• Lead, support & implement key business improvement projects across functions (One Right Way, Standard Work, 5S, Centerlining, etc.), facilitating & monitoring improvement initiatives through the use of Business Excellence tools and techniques.
• Defining process flows & standardised work in partnership with department teams with a view to producing Takt time, SOPs & value stream maps for all operations.
• Implementing best in class Visual Management System – communicating all key business information ensuring visibility & transparency.
• Working with functional leads on budget targets, constantly striving to reduce costs & improve efficiencies through detailed analysis and a continuous goal of eliminating waste.
• Coaching and mentoring of employees at all levels in the use of LEAN systems & tools.
• Building and maintaining effective working relationships across the business (and in particular with colleagues on the Business Excellence team) to ensure appropriate alignment with business process improvement projects.
• Communicating and engaging with people at all levels within the business in order to promote awareness and engagement in Business Excellence.

Requirements

• Third level qualification or significant relevant hands-on experience of Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Process Improvement or product development, project management.
• Self-confident with the ability to promote a new way of thinking.
• Highly motivated and self-driven.
• Excellent influencing skills.
• Excellent written, verbal and presentation communication skills.

If you are interested in this position, please apply with an up-to-date resume.

We offer

• 2 year structured graduate development programme
• Site or team rotations as part of the programme
• Year on year salary increment
• Free parking incl. EV charging – where applicable
• Bike to work scheme
• Work/life balance and collaborative work culture
• Career progression opportunities

About us
Through our expertise in research and development, customer insights, food safety and state-of-the-art manufacturing we bring innovative food and nutrition solutions to a global market. Our new and vibrant headquarters in Kilkenny City operates as a collaboration hub where multi-functional teams come together in a hybrid work environment.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion
We believe in the value of difference. We know that different perspectives, life experience and backgrounds can drive innovation and deliver growth.
We welcome people from all walks of life without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, or disability status.

Join our Talent Pool
Considering a new career in Tirlán but this isn’t the role for you? Join our talent community and sign up for job notifications at www.tirlan.com/careers

Tirlán is a Values Based Organisation