SOP Analyst

JOB TITLE: SOP Analyst

Department: Operations / Process Excellence

Reports To: Chief Operating Officer

Direct Reports: None

FLSA: Exempt

SUMMARY

The SOP Analyst is the documentation and measurement engine of AMain’s new SOP & Process Improvement function, working alongside a Process Improvement Engineer and IT Automation Experts to systematically inventory, analyze, redesign, implement, measure, and codify the way every department actually works. This role exists to move AMain from a hero-driven organization, where knowledge lives in a few people’s heads, to a process-driven organization where work is documented, owned, improved, and survives turnover. The Analyst owns the bookends of the improvement lifecycle — discovery and documentation up front, impact measurement and codification at the end — and collaborates with the Engineer and Automation team on redesign and implementation in the middle.

OPERATING APPROACH

Document what actually happens, not what is supposed to. Before improving a process, ask whether it needs to exist at all. Measure impact rather than assume it. Codify what works into living SOPs that survive turnover and scale. Walk the floor, sit with the team, observe before recommending — and ship a workable v1 SOP rather than waiting for the perfect one.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

PROCESS DISCOVERY & DOCUMENTATION (OWNED)

• Department process inventory: Build and maintain a master inventory of all department processes (Purchasing, Merchandising, Distribution Sales, Warehouse, Customer Service, HobbyTown corporate stores, IT, Finance, HR, Marketing) — what each department does, who owns it, how often it runs, and what triggers it.
• Current-state mapping: Map current-state processes using flowcharts, swimlanes, and step-by-step SOPs. Capture what actually happens, not what people say is supposed to happen.
• Stakeholder interviews and observation: Interview process owners, do-ers, and downstream consumers. Walk the floor — warehouse, CS desk, buying desk, retail stores — and observe processes in flight. Document edge cases and exceptions.
• Documentation standards: Establish and maintain documentation standards (format, naming, version control, ownership, review cadence) so every SOP is structured the same way and easy to find.
• Centralized SOP library: Own the centralized SOP repository (SharePoint, Notion, or equivalent). Every active process should have a single, current, owned source of truth.

ANALYSIS & OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION (OWNED)

• Process quantification: Quantify each process — time per execution, frequency, fully-loaded labor cost, error rate, downstream impact. Without numbers, “this is painful” is just an anecdote.
• Bottleneck and waste analysis: Identify bottlenecks, redundancies, hand-off friction, rework loops, and low-value steps. Surface the “do we need this at all?” candidates — processes that exist out of habit, not necessity.
• Opportunity prioritization: Rank improvement opportunities by impact (time / cost / error / risk) and feasibility. Bring a prioritized backlog to the team rather than a long list of complaints.
• Root cause analysis: When something breaks repeatedly, dig past the symptom to the process or system root cause and document it for the redesign conversation.

REDESIGN COLLABORATION (WITH PROCESS IMPROVEMENT ENGINEER)

• Future-state co-design: Partner with the Process Improvement Engineer to design future-state processes. Validate whether a process should be killed, simplified, automated, or kept and tightened.
• Stakeholder input: Bring the people who do the work into the redesign conversation; their friction signals are the most valuable input. Capture trade-offs and dissents.
• Decision documentation: Document the redesign rationale — what changed, why, what was considered and rejected — so the decision survives turnover.

IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT (WITH ENGINEER + AUTOMATION EXPERTS)

• Requirements specification: Translate redesigned processes into requirements the Automation Experts and IT can build against. Crisp inputs / outputs / exception paths, not vague intent.
• Change management: Coordinate change management with affected departments — training, communication, cutover timing, fallback plans. Adoption is part of the deliverable, not someone else’s problem.
• SOP updates: Update the SOP library to reflect the new process the moment it ships. Old SOPs get archived with a “superseded by” pointer; they don’t silently expire.

IMPACT MEASUREMENT (OWNED)

• Pre-change baselines: Before any change ships, define and capture the baseline metrics it is supposed to move (time, cost, error rate, throughput, customer impact, audit findings).
• Pre/post measurement: Measure the same metrics 30, 60, and 90 days after the change ships. Report the actual delta, not the expected one.
• ROI and reporting: Roll measured impact into a quarterly Process Improvement scorecard — total dollars and hours saved, errors prevented, processes retired — for leadership review.
• Honest reporting of misses: When a change didn’t hit its target, report that clearly. A failed change with honest measurement is more valuable than a “success” with no data.

CODIFICATION & ITERATION (OWNED)

• Living SOPs: Maintain SOPs as living documents — assigned owner, last-reviewed date, scheduled review cadence. SOPs that haven’t been reviewed in 12+ months get re-validated, not assumed correct.
• Iteration on misses: When measurement shows a change underperformed, take it back through the cycle. Iteration is the default, not a sign of failure.
• Knowledge transfer and training: Build training materials, run walkthroughs with affected teams, and confirm adoption. A documented process that no one follows is the same as no process.
• Pattern library: When a redesign solves a problem cleanly, codify the pattern so other departments can apply it without re-discovering.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL PARTNERSHIP

• Process Improvement Engineer: Daily partner — Analyst owns the discovery and measurement bookends; Engineer leads redesign and technical solution; both collaborate through implementation.
• IT Automation Experts: Translate process requirements into automation builds; coordinate on system, integration, and tooling decisions.
• Department Heads: The Analyst’s primary stakeholders. Build standing relationships so process inventory and SOP work is a partnership, not an audit.
• Executive Leadership: Report the Process Improvement scorecard and surface processes that cross departmental lines and need executive arbitration.
• HR and Training: Coordinate on training rollouts, onboarding integration, and SOP-based role definitions.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

• SOP coverage — % of in-scope department processes documented with current, owned SOPs.
• SOP currency — % of SOPs reviewed or updated in the last 12 months.
• Process changes shipped per quarter (eliminated, simplified, automated).
• Realized impact — total dollars and hours saved, errors prevented, attributable to shipped changes.
• % of shipped changes that hit their pre-stated success metric within 90 days.
• Department adoption rate of new and revised SOPs.
• Cycle time and error rate reduction across measured processes.
• Number of processes retired (killed because they shouldn’t have existed at all).

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

• 2-5 years of experience in business analysis, process analysis, operations, internal audit, project coordination, or a comparable analytical role with hands-on process documentation.
• Strong process documentation skills — proficient with flowcharts, swimlanes, and structured SOP writing.
• Advanced Excel skills (pivots, lookups, structured workbooks) and comfort quantifying process metrics from messy data.
• Demonstrated ability to interview stakeholders, observe processes, and translate unstructured operational reality into clean documentation.
• Strong written and verbal communication — the deliverable is a document that someone else will follow.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Familiarity with Lean, Six Sigma, BPM/BPMN, Kaizen, or similar improvement methodologies (not required — strong process instincts matter more than the belt).
• Bachelor’s degree in business, industrial engineering, operations management, supply chain, information systems, finance, or equivalent professional experience.
• Background in retail, distribution, multi-channel e-commerce, or other multi-site operations.
• Hands-on experience with documentation platforms (SharePoint, Notion, or similar) and version control.
• Working knowledge of BI / dashboarding tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker).
• Exposure to SQL or comparable querying for pulling baseline and impact data.
• ERP / WMS / CRM exposure 
• Experience supporting internal audit, SOX, or compliance documentation efforts.

DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

• Curious; comfortable asking “why does this process exist at all?” without making people defensive.
• Systematic and patient — willing to finish the boring 80% of documentation that most people skip.
• Comfortable with ambiguity; processes will not be neatly handed to you in a complete state.
• “Go-and-see” mindset — happy to walk the warehouse, sit with CS, meet with a buyer, and observe before recommending.
• Strong influence without authority — gets adoption from departments that don’t report to you.
• Detail-oriented without being a perfectionist — ships a v1 SOP and iterates rather than waiting for perfect.
• Bias toward measurement; instinctively asks “how will we know this worked?” before a change ships.