Quality Engineering Manger

About the role

The Quality Engineering Manager will maintain the company’s focus on high-quality driven products. This hands-on management role is responsible for leading the quality team to resolve issues in manufacturing and ensuring all products meet Kyocera-AVX’s high-quality standards. The role involves providing baseline quality metrics, recommending and developing continuous process improvement initiatives, and maintaining the organization’s Quality Management Systems compliance to AS9100. The Quality Engineering Manager will work directly with customers, employees, and external suppliers to qualify processes, monitor quality performance, and develop product requirements.

Responsibilities

• Guide Kyocera-AVX’s Quality team, providing direction and support on failure investigation, root cause identification, First Article Inspection (FAI), incoming inspection, and continuous improvement activities.
• Interface with customers to understand their quality needs, then propose and drive the team to execute projects to address those needs.
• Create, analyze, present, and address KPIs for CAPAs, SCARs, NCMRs, warranty failures, and escapes.
• Investigate and identify failure root cause and work with Manufacturing and Product Engineering teams to drive a response.
• Collaborate with the R&D team to ensure new product designs meet customer requirements, Kyocera-AVX’s quality standards, and RAMS requirements.
• Interface with suppliers to ensure continued quality or provide guidance when quality standards are not met.
• Manage outside consultants and sub-contractors where technical expertise does not exist in-house.
• Lead and facilitate Quality Improvement and Kaizen events.
• Establish and enact quality assurance procedures and methodologies within the Quality Management System (QMS) throughout the manufacturing, development, and business processes.
• Assess current production and inspection systems and develop new solutions to enhance quality control, frequently working with production managers and other leaders.
• Direct and coordinate quality assurance and quality control personnel, instructing them on new or revised processes, policies, procedures, and systems.
• Develop and report recurring quality issues, audit findings, and performance metrics of the business to all Management.
• Ensure and maintain detailed records of quality assurance activities and issues.
• Enhance performance by analyzing and assessing quality control and assurance data to find patterns and areas for improvement.
• Lead overall production and manufacturing efficiency by identifying opportunities to enhance productivity and implementing cost-saving solutions.
• Own and manage MRB (Manufacturing Review Board)/FRB (Failure Review Board) activities and RCCA (Root Cause and Corrective Action) process.
• Collaborate and report to customers on issues, corrective actions, project lifecycle requirements, FAI (First Article Inspections), and source inspections.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Industrial Engineering.
• 10+ years of experience in a relevant field.
• Ability and desire to actively engage with project work where required to meet goals.
• Working knowledge of mechanical and electrical engineering to interact with subject matter experts on complex electro-mechanical products.
• Experience with failure investigation, CAPA, 8D, and reliability studies.
• Strong interpersonal skills to interact with internal and external stakeholders.
• Solid foundation of quality assurance processes, policies, procedures, and methodologies.
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Robust skills in numerical and statistical analysis, and extensive knowledge of process improvement and enhancement.
• Ability to direct, oversee, and lead team members with motivational leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master of Science in Mechanical, Electrical, Quality, Industrial Engineering, or other relevant disciplines.
• Experience in the Electronics manufacturing industry and/or experience with Aerospace and Defense manufacturing industry.
• Experience with AS9100 Audit standards.
• Experience with any/all: diode lasers, optics, opto-mechanical systems, optical metrology, Peltier modules, heat transfer, imaging systems, power electronics.
• Advanced understanding of the design and/or root cause identification of electro-mechanical systems.
• Experience with programming languages for data collection and analysis.