Process Improvement & Quality Engineer

About the role

Within the operations department and reporting directly to the Continuous Improvement Lead, your role is to improve the efficiency of our plant manufacturing processes by applying lean manufacturing principles.

Responsibilities

• Ensure optimal production efficiency by problem-solving top production losses, finding the root cause, and designing the issue out in the shortest period possible, leading to no repeated problems occurring.
• Investigate the root causes of complaints – both from the customer and those found during production – and then identify and implement effective preventative actions.
• Support the Quality team and Engineering team, and lead improvement activities across all plant and equipment areas using Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control methods.
• Manage customer complaints and internal complaints for the site, including recording, investigating, agreeing and implementing preventative actions, and reporting to internal and external stakeholders.
• Aid in the training of staff to ensure they develop the skills to become subject/equipment experts in the various systems and processes on site, enabling them to implement and sustain the improvements.
• Lead and support root cause analysis when plant and equipment issues arise, suggest corrective and preventative actions, and ensure these are appropriately documented and approved in accordance with local procedures.
• Provide engineering support, including design reviews, commissioning, and validation support of plant and equipment, involving Factory Acceptance Testing, Commissioning, and Team Training.
• Support the introduction of new plant and equipment, defining user requirements specifications through to involvement in commissioning, validation, and ongoing operation & maintenance.
• Develop, maintain, and improve plant and equipment procedures to execute all activities in a safe and compliant way, conduct optimisation studies, and perform detailed engineering analysis of existing facilities, systems & process equipment.
• Support the management of the site maintenance programme to ensure that plant, facilities, and process equipment are kept safe and compliant with statutory regulation and company procedures.
• Work together with the Site and Operations Managers to cover periods of holiday and absence; undertake other duties in relation to the position as the Company requires, including working additional hours as requested by the Site and Operations Manager.
• Take ownership of all equipment within your designated focus area, ensure they are run to pre-set speeds and conditions, and complete maintenance to schedule with successful outputs. Implement controls where gaps are found and roll out to other similar equipment.

Qualifications and Experience Required

• Graduate Masters / Bachelor in a Technical / Manufacturing / Sciences subject
• Proven capability in Problem Solving (8D, DMAIC, Green Belt Lean 6 Sigma, UPS, A3, …)
• Desirable: 1 year or more of experience in a process control / engineering role, MEng in Industrial / Mechanical Engineering, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt qualified or equivalent, experience in a fast-moving manufacturing environment, experience in the food packaging, automotive or FMCG industry.

Skills and Knowledge

• Ability to analyse complex sets of data quickly
• Excellent communication: written, spoken, visual
• Excellent computer skills: mainly Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and email

Personal Attributes

• Curious
• Willing to learn and develop personal knowledge
• Bias for action / Enthusiastic with drive for continuous improvement
• An excellent team player with good interpersonal skills able to communicate at all levels
• Logical with a key eye for details
• Excellent customer focus required

Role Within The Company And Stakeholder Interactions

The candidate will report to the site Continuous Improvement Lead with a dotted line report to the Quality Manager. The candidate will have to interact with multiple stakeholders on a day to day basis: Manufacturing, Engineering, Quality, Warehouse, Supply Chain…, sister plants (based in Europe), Suppliers.

Key Measurables

• % Unplanned Downtime on focus machinery
• % Implementation of line process control
• Time taken by the team to change over machinery
• % People trained to correct operating level on focus machinery
• % People trained on problem solving
• $ saved by continuous improvement projects implemented