Metallurgical Technician

Company Overview:

Since its inception in 1911 in Hagen, Germany, the parent company of the BILSTEIN GROUP has become one of the largest suppliers of cold rolled products in the world. For decades, famous names in many sectors have profited from BILSTEIN's expertise. The BILSTEIN COLD ROLLED STEEL facility in Bowling Green, KY is the company’s first United States manufacturing operation. It serves the automotive industry, automotive supply industry, as well as, the saw and tooling industry with tailor-made steel grades. BILSTEIN COLD ROLLED STEEL (BCRS) is looking for a Metallurgical Technician at its Bowling Green, KY facility.

Position: Metallurgical Technician  

Duties & Responsibilities

In collaboration with the Department Manager of Material Technology & Laboratories, Quality Specialist, Technical Engineers and Operations Manager, the Metallurgical Technician is responsible for materials testing of cold rolled steel and rolling oil emulsions, cataloguing recordings and making results available when requested, releasing or holding material in an efficient and timely manner to enable the smooth flow of material through the production process.

Specific duties include:

Safety/Environmental

- Ensuring that all company Safety and Environmental rules are followed.

- Following Safe Working Procedures (SWP’s) and Risk Assessments for the laboratory department.

- Reporting all safety issues and accidents to the Production Foreman.

- Ensuring that housekeeping and 5S standards are maintained in the laboratory area.

Labratory Operations

- Mechanical Testing of Steel – Tensile, hardness, bend testing of production material to ensure compliance to specifications.

- Metallographic Testing of Steel – Optical Microscopy of production material to ensure compliance to specifications.

- Chemical Testing – Operation of mobile optical emission spectrometer

- Emulsion testing - Fat content, saponification number, bacteria testing, iron particles, iron content, chloride, sulfate, salinity and ash content.

- Other Testing – Surface Roughness and dimensional testing including crown profiles, camber, thickness and width testing

- Any testing required to ensure compliance to customer or industry specifications. This may include coordinating with outside test labs for niche testing. 

- Working with the operations to obtain samples for testing from standard work. 

- Preparing samples for testing marking the samples with order details and process route ID.

- Testing of nonstandard testing including metallographic investigation to material claims from the field. 

- Responsible for the storage, scrapping and documentation of samples.

- Calibration of testing equipment including all hand held measuring devices used throughout the plant. This may require arranging outside calibration services.

Quality Managmment System‘s

- Work with the QMS Manager and Quality Specialist on tasks to ensure compliance to IATF 16949, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001

- Assist in the development and compliance to ISO 17025

The fulfillment of duties involves regular communication with co-workers in the cold rolling, annealing, slitting and shipping departments in order to make decisions concerning production and quality requirements.

Qualifications/Training:

- Education: Completion of High School Diploma or Secondary Education, AS or Technical degree with equivalent experience preferred.

- Experience: 1-3 years experience in a manufacturing environment preferably in steel/metal manufacturing.

- Knowledge of production and processing of cold rolled steel would be an advantage.

- Clear Interpersonal and communication skills (oral and written).

- Strong practical and organizational skills, able to follow written or oral directions, communicating information in an organized manner.

- A good scientific and technical background.

- Perform basic material testing computations, understand field and laboratory notes.

- PC Knowledge (Internet/Windows applications).

- Willing to cover all shifts to support Production process. May require rotation.