Meet Damla Kaya, Integrated Lean Six Sigma Manager (IL6S)

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Please introduce yourself.

I lived in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, throughout my childhood and university years. After graduating from Food Engineering/METU, I moved to İstanbul for my Mondelēz International adventure.

Throughout my 9-year amazing journey at Mondelēz, I have had the opportunity to work in Quality and IL6S functions. Currently, I have been an IL6S Manager at the Gebze, Turkey plant for 3.5 years. Gebze is one of the biggest Gum and Candy plants of Mondelēz. I am responsible for managing all the Plant Continuous Improvement Programs by coaching the teams related to lean methodology and specific pillar structure, leading the productivity agenda, and implementing lean digital tools.

How did your career develop at Mondelēz International? You started your MDLZ career as a Quality Engineer, and now you are a People Manager. What advice would you give to people who are aiming for a career like yours?

I actually started as an intern in the Quality Department in 2014. After graduation, I had the opportunity to work as a Quality Engineer. As a new beginner, I tried to learn more on the shop floor and to get involved in many projects to discover my own passion and plan my career path. I was especially interested in the IL6S lean program, and I tried to improve myself by taking on additional responsibilities. Mondelēz, like a university, offers a wide range of training options and covers any topic you want to learn. Then, I followed my passion and moved to the IL6S department 6 years ago.

My first advice is to discover your passion to shape your career and gain experience. Learning is an endless journey. New roles and responsibilities are key elements to push our comfort zone and to drive our development area. Being a multinational company is a crucial advantage. We have an amazing organization that allows us to strengthen communication with people from different countries and business units and gain new perspectives. We should take advantage of these opportunities for our own career development. Another crucial point is that if you work in production or production support units, learning and understanding production and processes very well will be a great advantage in your future career.

What is your current role, and what makes it exciting?

Mondelēz is one of the few companies in the industry that approaches lean systems in such an end-to-end (E2E) mindset.

Leading IL6S in my factory is a very valuable and exciting experience for me. It is an integrated program where all functions are involved and work for a single goal: Operational Excellence. In this process, we are coaching the entire plant organization. Our common goal is to reduce losses, increase quality, enhance efficiency and safety, improve factory flexibility, and improve business results by enhancing team competencies, and reach a class factory.

The most exciting part of my job is realizing how quickly people's competencies develop, getting the results of the projects we've worked on or coached, and being able to work very closely with everyone in the organization. Also, the digital transformation opportunity is another exciting aspect. Digital transformation is not so easy for the Gebze plant since it is a big factory with 67 lines and many old lines. Nevertheless, working with regional teams to bring new projects to the factory and then realizing that the business processes become simpler and improved by implementing them are the motivating aspects of our job. We are learning new digital tools, systems, programs, and how we implement them.

Can you briefly inform us about what kind of projects you carry out regarding continuous improvements?

The loss analysis drives our continuous improvement projects. We use IL6S tools such as RCA (Root Cause Analysis), Kobetsu Kaizen, Green Belt, VSM (Value Stream Mapping), SMED, and others for defined losses. Selecting data-oriented methods to solve problems and eliminate losses is also part of the lean culture. We work on a wide range of projects, from reducing product waste and downtime on the lines to eliminating non-value-adding activities of the process that we are doing every day. This is an endless journey for continuous improvement. In addition to that, finding a new solution to make data analysis easier and more efficient is another aspect of projects. We are converting old-style data trackers to Power BI reports and other lean digital tools like Solvace. This allows us to analyze losses more accurately and focus on the right points.

What are some of the key challenges you face in your role as a Plant Productivity Lead and Digital Solutions & Pillar Coach, and how do you address them?

Developing and going further in the IL6S approach can only be possible by adopting this culture throughout the organization. I think ensuring that focus is not lost, despite workload and changing agenda, is key to success. In an organization that is so developing and constantly changing, we need to adapt quickly and with agility.

In the developing world, we need to include digital tools as an enabler for lean methodology. Sometimes, in such a large factory with a large number of old machines, we may have difficulty in adapting the necessary infrastructure for digital tools, finding a budget for them, and implementing the projects in the factories.

Why MDLZ?

Working at Mondelēz International was my dream as a food engineering student during my university years. The idea of working for joyful snacking and being part of a multinational company excites me every day. When I had the opportunity to intern here, I was deeply impressed by the working environment, the teams I collaborated with, the dynamics between them, and the energy in the factory environment. After that, I worked hard to secure a position here. Over the past 8 years, I’ve had the chance to grow and develop within Mondelēz. I can feel that my ideas and efforts are valued, and of course, I have an amazing team, and I’m very happy to work with them! :)