Senior Innovation Engineer, Packaging Development

Tasks & Responsibilities

• Understand market/customer requirements to design, develop and validate high barrier sustainable packaging solutions for pharma and medical device products.
• Construct design brief in close coordination with sales, product line management, quality, manufacturing and regulatory to define product CTQs and CTPs
• Lead packaging development projects from concept to commercialization using kp’s stage gate process and present stage gate updates to peers and kp’s senior leadership team
• Work in close collaboration with global innovation team members to develop kp’s short and long term strategic platform solutions.
• Develop packaging solutions which meet with global pharma and medical device regulatory requirements.
• Work with kp’s external partners to develop open innovation and joint solutions that meet with customer and market expectations.
• Use quality by design (QBD) methodologies to develop robust solutions which would meet with pre-defined critical to quality (CTQ’s) and critical to process (CTP’s).
• Write timely and detailed but succinct reports to bring out the project goals, actions, observations and next steps

Education

• Masters degree in Polymer/Chemical/Plastics Engineering, min 8 years of relevant professional experience

Knowledge/Skills

• In depth working knowledge of polymers such as but not limited to PE,PET,PP, PETG, PCTFE, PVC, PVDC
• Hand on experience on various polymer processing techniques such as single screw/twin screw extrusion, calendaring, coating and lamination
• Subject matter expertise on structure property relationship of different polymers.
• Working knowledge of various additives for polymers such as anti oxidants, nucleating agents, anti static agents, colorants etc.
• Working knowledge of films providing oxygen and moisture barrier for protection of sensitive product such as pharma solid/liquid oral dosage.
• Domain knowledge of sterilizable medical device packaging films using various sterilizable techniques such as gamma, E Beam, EtO etc.
• Hands-on experience on extrusion/lamination/coating processes
• Good understanding of various analytical techniques such as FTIR, DSC, TGA, DMA, Microscopy
• Good understanding of various instruments such as tensile tester, impact tester, rapid prototyping.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office – Ability to Enter and Interpret Data in Excel and Write Project Reports in Word, make presentations using powerpoint.
• Ability to communicate clearly and timely with both internal and external stakeholders
• Background in Pharma/Medical Device Packaging a plus, incl. an understanding of regulatory norms for pharma and medical devices.

Competencies

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Ability to independently engage with customers, suppliers and internal stakeholders.
• Ability to efficiently handle multiple projects at the same time.
• Ability to write succinct technical reports
• Ability to anticipate constraints and risks, design work arounds and countermeasures to achieve project objectives
• Willingness to travel occasionally for customer support, project support or training.