Automation Engineer

About the Role

Novelis' Bay Minette team is seeking an Automation Engineer to support and optimize the site's automation systems, with a focus on ASRS (Automated Storage and Retrieval System) and WMS (Warehouse Management System) technologies. This role will serve as a technical expert in automation integration, data systems, and Industry 4.0 initiatives, partnering with operations, reliability, and technology teams to improve safety, productivity, quality, and inventory management while driving continuous improvement across the manufacturing environment.

The newly announced Bay Minette facility will be located 35 miles northeast of Mobile, AL, and 45 miles west of Pensacola, FL. It is expected to create approximately 1,000 high-paying advanced careers in modern manufacturing and will primarily serve customers in the beverage can and automotive markets.

Responsibilities

• Recognize and prevent safety issues early in the project cycle to avoid prospective safety issues.
• Actively engage in broader regional or global EHS initiatives; participate in the development of standards for EHS initiatives with regional or global impact.
• Partner with site, regional, and global teams to ensure mechanisms, networks, or relationships are in place to collect project requirements and feedback; translate requirements and feedback to project team actions.
• Identify customer and/or operational problems to be addressed, propose solutions, lead work of project teams to solve the problem, ensure alignment across geographies or operating areas, and report findings.
• Lead regular review meetings with collaborators on joint projects.
• Ensure the project team meets assigned commitments and negotiates major project timelines and work.
• Manage interpersonal dynamics in project groups/teams to achieve constructive outcomes at individual, team, and organizational levels.
• Influence site decision-making by preparing and presenting technical information on matters related to Automation Level 2 Systems.
• Possess high-level knowledge of site automatic cranes applications, with a comprehensive understanding of manufacturing areas and their interdependencies.
• Assess the viability of technologies, processes, or methods to make recommendations for broadly implemented solutions.
• Effectively present technical information to peers or business leaders and influence site and regional technical decisions.
• Generate and contribute to complex technical problems where the use of experience and creativity is critical to selecting technical directions.
• Support the introduction of Industry 4.0 within the molten metal and rolling manufacturing environment.
• Act as a liaison between Shop Floor, Reliability, and Global Technology groups.
• Innovate and develop new techniques, processes, and protocols; share and implement initiatives.
• Enable effective utilization of data applied to upper-level systems (MES and Level 3 Supply Chain).
• Participate in multidisciplinary teams to tackle problems from multiple dimensions and drive customer-centric solutions.
• Systematically analyze the business value and viability of ideas generated by self or project teams to arrive at solutions for routine manufacturing issues.
• Maintain a network of technical contacts within and outside the organization.
• Facilitate the translation of complex data interdependencies to Automation teams, MES teams, and data engineers, establishing priorities in multidisciplinary groups.
• Compile results and prepare technical reports and documentation of outcomes to ensure knowledge capture.
• Identify the need for training classes for technical and non-technical collaborators and assist with the development of curriculum.
• Design, develop, and implement knowledge transfer initiatives to effectively utilize both implicit and explicit know-how in the organization.
• Adhere to and support company quality, environmental, health & safety, and certification standards, including ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, ISO 45001:2018, IATF 16949:2016, and ASI Certifications, where applicable.

Requirements

• BS in Computer Science or Engineering or a four-year degree in a related technical field (STEM).
• 4 years of progressive experience in censoring databases and interface systems, specifically in implementation and support of systems integration (automation systems) and communication methods standardization (telegrams and middleware).
• Experience with sensors, databases, PDI/PDOs structure, and KPI dashboards elaboration.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of Historians (preferably iba and/or OSISoft-PI).
• Experience in Warehouse Management Systems.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future sponsorship.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Company-funded Health Savings Account (HSA) and Health Reimbursement Account (HRA).
• Company-paid life insurance and voluntary coverage options.
• Competitive paid time off.
• 401(k) savings plan with company match.
• Retirement and post-retirement health coverage options.
• Employee assistance programs available 24/7.
• Wellness, career development, and work-life support resources.