Quality Engineer

At American Packaging Corporation (APC), you’ll find the packaging career you’ve been looking for. With competitive salaries, excellent benefits, 401(k) plans, and tuition reimbursement programs, we nurture our employees while advancing and promoting diversity and inclusion. As the leading flexible packaging converter in North America for over a century, APC’s longstanding success is fueled from the inside out. We’re constantly seeking to improve our internal operations and were named a “Best of the Best” in the Best Workplaces in the Americas awards for 12 years in a row.

About the Role

Champion of customer advocacy, responsible for transforming the Voice of the Customer into actionable opportunities and driving customer satisfaction through data-driven analysis for prioritization of corrective measures and improvement opportunities.

Responsible for championing the Integrated Business Management System (IBMS), maintaining certification to ISO9001, 14001, FSSC, and other standards as required, providing training, and writing procedures and processes to support IBMS development. Lead and undertake audits across all areas of the business as well as across the supply chain. Maintain statistical tools for continuous quality and profit improvement projects. Lead and drive improvement actions from audits, customer complaints, and continuous improvement. Be the change agent for quality-related projects.

Apply project management and technical expertise to successfully deliver Validation program goals and outcomes while interacting with customers and meeting their expectations.

Responsibilities

• Customer Leadership and management of customer complaint program including associated return and credit authorizations, leadership of team to identify root causes, implementing corrective actions to prevent recurrence and mitigate future quality risks, and timely communication back to customers.
• Monitoring and reporting of complaint and quality data and trends for area dashboards, operations review, and systems management review.
• Execution of formal weekly/monthly/annual Complaint Performance Reviews and reporting of complaint status to management team.
• Provide backup for Quality Supervisors and Quality technicians.
• Travel as required to work with customers, understand their concerns, and resolve issues.
• Drive continuous improvement opportunities utilizing lean six sigma and the seven basic quality tools, to benefit the success of APC, including profit improvement plans, long and short-term strategic objectives, helping establish problem-solving teams and methods, and recommend capital projects that improve Safety, Productivity, and Quality.
• Write and improve manuals, standards, and procedures as needed.
• Use of statistical software and techniques for analysis of data including Process Capability (Cpk, Ppk), Statistical Process Control (SPC), and Design of Experiments (DOE).
• Oversee effective implementation of the IBMS including applicable certifications.
• Maintain manuals and procedures and determine future procedural needs of the business.
• Organize and manage the internal audit system and the corrective action system.
• Host external audits, conduct internal audits, and assist in training of other auditors.
• Collect and analyze quality data and report on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to drive improvement.
• Project leader for quality and continuous improvement activities and promote the use of improvement tools such as Six-Sigma, Error Proofing, and Measurement System Analysis.
• Statistical analysis of data using Excel, JMP, Minitab, or other statistical software tools.
• Recommend capital projects that improve Safety, Productivity, and Quality within the operation.
• Be the next level for complaint resolution with customers beyond the administration of the complaint, including identifying root cause, implementing corrective actions, and driving projects to proactively mitigate future quality risks.
• Manage the scope, schedule, and reporting of Validation program activities for individual products and/or customers; ensure status, risks, and open issues are tracked and that all stakeholders (Management, internal/external clients, Business Managers/Project Managers, and regulatory agencies) are informed in a timely manner.
• Write and execute IQ/OQ/PQ validation protocols and manage the associated deviation process.
• Management and leadership of change control process, calibration process, and gage R&R process.
• Provide hands-on support to the manufacturing areas as required to assist in problem-solving and long-term changes that provide product/process improvements in relation to process failures.
• Collect and analyze data to make data-driven recommendations/decisions.
• Participate in process failure investigations.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of validation requirements, practices, and procedures and instruct other members of the site participating in validation studies.
• Support risk analysis activities, including design and process FMEA.
• Facilitate team meetings as needed on in-depth process and product analysis, risk assessments, decision-making, and other evaluations related to the Validation program.
• Assist in internal and 3rd party audits.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree from a four-year college or university in science, mathematics, or engineering; and two years of related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• ASQ certification is a plus.
• Ability to read, analyze, and interpret common scientific and technical journals, financial reports, and legal documents.
• Ability to respond to common inquiries or complaints from customers, regulatory agencies, or members of the business community.
• Ability to write speeches and articles for publication that conform to prescribed style and format.
• Ability to effectively present information to top management, public groups, and/or boards of directors.
• Ability to apply advanced mathematical concepts such as exponents, logarithms, quadratic equations, and permutations.
• Ability to apply mathematical operations to tasks such as frequency distribution, determination of test reliability and validity, analysis of variance, correlation techniques, sampling theory, and factor analysis.
• Demonstrated use of Minitab or JMP is a preferred skill.
• Ability to utilize descriptive statistics (average, variation, standard deviation) to analyze data and support process control and capability analysis.
• Ability to create and interpret control charts, histograms, pareto charts, and scatter diagrams.
• Ability to develop statistically appropriate sampling plans.
• Ability to use and learn statistical analysis software.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

Physical Demands

• The employee is regularly required to sit and frequently required to talk or hear.
• The employee is occasionally required to walk.
• For Customer & Validation roles, the employee is frequently required to stand, use hands to finger, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls.
• The employee is occasionally required to sit, reach with hands and arms, stand, walk, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl, and climb or balance.
• This position may require manual lifting not to exceed 50 lbs.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, and the ability to adjust focus.
• Employee must also be able to taste/smell.

Work Environment

The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

Pay

$75,000-100,000

Benefits

• Excellent benefits
• 401(k) plans
• Tuition reimbursement programs