Tooling Engineer

Our Client a leading shooting sports manufacturer is seeking a forward -thinking Tooling Engineer to join their team of engineers in their Denver Metropolitan area office.

This position will be onsite *relocation assistance available

Job Description:

The Tooling Engineer I has experience in injection molding tooling design, process set-up and optimization, polymetric material selection; and the ability to work as part of a team within the design, engineering, and manufacturing group. Primary responsibilities include but are not limited to; design and supervise the fabrication of injection molds, perform process validations to ensure quality levels are met and are within budgeted costs, works with other engineers on design to improve existing parts and make recommendations for tooling related changes that help improve product cost, quality and cycle efficiency.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

TOOLING

• Responsible for the design of new tooling assets and ensuring on-time delivery of tooling assets in fabrication.
• Responsible for sustaining a fleet of existing tooling including implementing Engineering Changes, continuous improvement opportunities, repairs, and refurbishments.
• Troubleshooting process and tooling issues with production injection molds.
• Evaluate both new and existing injection molding manufacturing processes identifying areas that can be changed to improve efficiency, increase quality and reduce costs.
• Responsible for ensuring tooling vendors are following best practices in their setup of molding process parameters.
• Compile tooling vendor quotes, participate in sourcing decisions, and submit Purchase Requests for new tooling.
• Create detailed tooling and fixture specifications, per part design requirements, to solicit quotes from tooling vendors.
• New Tooling first shot management, evaluation and problem solving.
• Perform equipment and mold validations to ensure quality levels are met and within budgeted costs.
• Liaise with other Engineers and Designers to improve existing plastic parts and make recommendations for changes.
• Work with design and manufacturing teams to ensure ease of production and host Design for Manufacture Reviews with project design teams under guidance of the Senior Tooling Engineer.
• Assist design engineering in product material selection based on design constraints and manufacturability optimization.
• Assist in R&D polymeric material initiatives through selection, processing, and validation testing.
• Coordination of tool repair, improvement and engineering change activity, as needed.
• Provide status reports to supporting departments and management teams, as needed.
• Sustaining tooling issue updates, management and design/processing problem under guidance of the Senior Tooling Engineer.
• Maintain and update Tooling Master lists as to status, cost, etc.
• Special entry level projects and improvement initiatives, as assigned.
• Travel to supplier sites as part of program support to continuously monitor supplier performance. Ability to travel: in-state day trips up to 50% and overnight travel up to 10%.
• Other Duties as assigned.

MOLDING

• Responsible for the development, qualification, and production process approval of all new injection molds.
• Monitor part and tooling issues in production and provide root cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Utilize Scientific/Decoupled Molding processes, Designs of Experiment, and Process Capability Studies to establish optimal processing parameters.
• Optimize molding cycle times to increase company margins.
• Recommend tooling modifications to increase molding window and reduce part defect scrap.
• Determine molding vendor equipment requirements for new tooling prior to transfer.
• Develop set-up procedures and documentation for transfers to molding vendors.
• Perform root cause analysis and implement corrective actions of non-conformance at molding vendors.
• Implement preventative measures with molding vendors maintenance teams to reduce downtime and improve equipment reliability.
• Leads post mold repair samplings and qualification for return to active production status.
• Perform part cost estimation to support development of new product business cases.
• Interact with product design team for runner/gate sizing and process parameters inputs for Mold Flow analysis.
• Provide guidance for material selection of new products.
• Demonstrated ability to interpret Mold Flow analysis results.
• Collaborate in Engineering Design for Manufacturing and Final Design Reviews.
• Participate in scouting and vetting potential new molding vendors.
• Special entry level projects and improvement initiatives, as assigned.
• Provide status reports to supporting departments and management teams, as needed.
• Travel to supplier sites as part of program support to continuously monitor supplier performance. Ability to travel: in-state day trips up to 50% and overnight travel up to 10%.
• Other Duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Associates degree required; bachelor’s degree strongly preferred, Plastics, Molding Technology, Engineering or related field preferred. A strong background in Injection Molding Tooling or Processing will be considered as an offset for educational background.
• 3 or more years of experience in injection molding operations/processing, and/or tooling/mold design.

Job Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Self-motivated with good written and verbal communication skills.
• Possess a detailed and methodical approach to problem solving.
• Basic understanding of dimensioning and tolerance of plastic parts.
• Must be a "hands-on" person with experience in solid modeling, part design for Injection Molding, Injection Mold Design, Injection Mold Processing and secondary plastic assembly methods.
• Must be able to establish molding process parameters, validation of equipment/process and appropriate capital funds as necessary.
• Must be able to coordinate active projects with the Manufacturing and Quality departments for repeat product/process issues.
• Knowledge of polymeric materials and processing techniques for tool building, polymers processing.
• Demonstrated mold and design experience.
• Drafting and machine design skills.
• Experience with MoldFlow or similar simulation software, a plus.
• Basic Knowledge of Quality Management Systems (PFMEA, 5S, Pareto, APQP, PPAP).
• Good communication skills.
• Strong mechanical aptitude.
• Good problem-solving skills.
• Ability to actively listen and learn while working in a fast-paced environment of manufacturing and tooling design.
• Machine shop & prototyping skills.

Additional:

• This position reports to the VP of Engineering.
• Competitive pay rate commensurate to experience.