Total Quality Engineer | Fort Worth, TX

About the role

The Total Quality Engineer is a critical role within our Total Quality Management team, focused on maintaining and enhancing customer and supplier quality relationships, improving the quality of the components we distribute, and the services we provide. This position involves direct interface with our key customers, primarily in the military, aerospace, and transportation industries, to address and resolve issues related to both internal processes and defective parts. The Total Quality Engineer collaborates closely with our customers’ Supplier Quality Engineers, internal departments and with quality and production personnel at our suppliers to ensure that all quality concerns are efficiently and effectively resolved. This role is pivotal in fulfilling our mission to deliver the right parts exactly on time and to exceeding our internal and external customer requirements through continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary Quality contact for key customers, by leading interdepartmental and intercompany teams to responsibly meet or exceed the quality requirements of these critical customers.
• Communicate effectively with customers to understand their quality expectations (Q-notes/clauses) to translate them into understandable actions for internal departments and suppliers.
• Collaborate with the customers’ Quality Engineers to develop and deploy plans to improve our performance.
• Professionally present improvement actions and programs to customers’ management and their Quality Engineers.
• Facilitate Source Inspections with key customers.
• Lead teams of Sales, Purchasing, Warehouse Operations & Suppliers to resolve immediate problems and improve long term quality performance.
• Contain problems rapidly and coordinate short term solutions to facilitate business until the Root Cause is effectively addressed.
• Lead teams to find the true Root Causes and to develop solid Corrective Actions (8D’s) for key customers.
• Perform/Arrange audits to ensure Corrective Actions for key customers are effective.
• Communicate frequently with all internal & external parties to ensure action items accomplished & progress is shared.
• Communicate customer and 3rd party auditor expectations to internal departments in language they can understand and implement.
• Facilitate communication and problem-solving efforts between suppliers, TTI, and customers to resolve quality issues promptly.
• Establish and properly communicate timelines to ensure customer expectations and supplier turnaround time is understood by all parties (returns, 8D’s).
• Develop relationships with Supplier contacts to determine and execute corrective actions and improvement plans with proper urgency, rigor, and escalation.
• Provide customer and TTI input to suppliers to improve product and packaging quality.
• Lead and participate in continuous improvement initiatives to enhance the quality of products and processes.
• Utilize Quality tools and methodologies (5 Why Analysis, Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen, etc.) to drive improvements.
• Present the quality performance and improvement activities for assigned key accounts to Total Quality and cross-functional management.
• Ensure compliance with industry-specific quality standards and regulations, particularly those relevant to the military, aerospace, and transportation industries. (AS9100, AS13100, TS16949, Mil-Std-790, etc.)
• Facilitate Customer and 3rd Party Surveys & Audits to these standards.
• Stay updated on changes to quality standards and regulations.
• Complete assigned special projects in a timely and accurate manner by reviewing requirements with appropriate management, developing project plans and effectively completing assigned projects.
• Support efforts to improve key metrics (Defective Part Resolution Life Cycle, RMA turn times, CA responsiveness, dPPM, COQ and others).

Requirements

• High School Diploma/GED required.
• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field (e.g. business, mathematics, engineering, quality) strongly preferred.
• 3+ years’ experience in Quality Engineering or problem solving role preferred.
• Experience within the electronic component distribution industry and working with military, aerospace, or transportation customers is highly desirable.
• Application of Industry Quality and Military Standards (AS9100, ISO9001, ANSI/ESD S20.20, Mil-STD-790, and others).
• Experience applying the principles of quality system requirements including Root Cause and Corrective Action (RCCA) activities through a combination of data driven analysis and applied Quality Engineering tools. (Zero Defect, SPC, PFMEA, 5 Why’s, etc.)
• Experience leading inter-departmental & inter-company teams to solve problems.

Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with both customers and suppliers in tense situations.
• Proficiency in quality management systems and standards, particularly those relevant to the target industries (e.g., AS9100, ISO 9001, TS16949).
• Experience with quality improvement tools and methodologies, such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and Root Cause Analysis.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to quality.
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft