Continuous Improvement Engineer

Founded over 35 years ago, First Quality is a family-owned company that has grown from a small business in McElhattan, Pennsylvania into a group of companies, employing over 5,000 team members, while maintaining our family values and entrepreneurial spirit. With corporate offices in New York and Pennsylvania and 8 manufacturing campuses across the U.S. and Canada, the companies within the First Quality group produce high-quality personal care and household products for large retailers and healthcare organizations. Our personal care and household product portfolio includes baby diapers, wipes, feminine pads, paper towels, bath tissue, adult incontinence products, laundry detergents, fabric finishers, and dishwash solutions. In addition, we manufacture certain raw materials and components used in the manufacturing of these products, including flexible print and packaging solutions.

Guided by our values of humility, unity, and integrity, we leverage advanced technology and innovation to drive growth and create new opportunities. At First Quality, you’ll find a collaborative environment focused on continuous learning, professional development, and our mission to Make Things Better®.

We are seeking a Continuous Improvement Engineer-Blending/Process for our First Quality Home Care Products , LLC facility located in Salt Lake City, UT This position will be responsible for providing leadership and execution of process optimization and improvements in our Blending/Process area with the goal of improving efficiencies, lowering costs, and increasing production while ensuring compliance with quality systems and regulatory requirements. This candidate would also provide support for other activities including product development and process/product qualifications.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Promote an action-oriented safety culture embracing safety as a core value, instilling and exemplifying a safety mindset for all team members resulting in an incident free workplace.
• Work in conjunction with Quality department to ensure finished product satisfies all finished product quality standards.
• Organize, implement and maintain production process flow. Develop best practices, routines and innovative solutions to improve production rates and quality of output.
• Systematically evaluate, analyze and identify trends in manufacturing processes/equipment issues and data from failures. Create and implement recommendations to prevent recurrence to reduce downtime and waste.
• Complete design and development projects by training, providing technical support and promoting growth of production personnel to improve understanding of processes.
• Help develop new products from concept through commercialization.
• Optimize the technical and economic performance of newly created products.
• Prepare documentation for new manufacturing processes and/or engineering procedures, reviews design drawings and customer specifications.
• Utilizes project management skills, prepares timelines, schedules, and coordinates multiple disciplines to meet required schedules.
• Proposes, installs, starts up, and validates new equipment.
• Plans and leads process trials and communicates results to appropriate parties.
• Utilizing employee interaction and data historians to find and implement new opportunities.
• Apply continuous improvement methods such as lean manufacturing to enhance manufacturing quality, reliability, or cost-effectiveness.
• Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
• Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
• Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
• Fundamental knowledge of cost accounting principles.
• Identify, analyze, prioritize and eliminate losses and inefficiencies.
• Optimize process efficiency, productivity, and yield through continuous improvement programs.
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) to resolve and eliminate specific chronic losses.
• Support daily activities of the operations area, building long-term capability into the area, systems, and employees.
• Identify and lead small capital projects, working closely with Engineering Project Managers.
• Implement process control improvements to reduce product variability.
• Develop, maintain, and validate standards to enable achievement of performance targets in operations.
• Generate and update work instructions and standards for production processes, as required.
• Collaborate with operations employees, as well as other functions and sites, to create best solutions.
• Participate in New Product Development processes to evaluate concepts, designs, prototypes, and tests.
• Design and develop equipment improvements, including selection and coordination with suppliers.
• Collaborate with engineering to resolve safety and customer quality issues related to manufacturing processes.
• Work closely with continuous improvement leads and trainers to develop Operator and Mechanic training.
• All other duties, as assigned.

The ideal candidate should possess the following:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering (Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Process Engineering, etc), with at least 2-5 years of engineering experience in a high-speed manufacturing environment.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience in a high-speed, high-volume manufacturing environment will be considered.
• Six Sigma, DOE, and SPC, Lean experiences preferred.
• Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Manufacturing Execution System, Parcview or PI Historian Software experience preferred.

• Identify complex problems with root cause analysis and recommend/facilitate the implementation of solutions.
• Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Analytical thought process by identifying the underlying principles, reasons, or facts of information by breaking down information or data into separate parts.
• Ability to manage multiple projects/tasks and adjust priorities as necessary.
• Detail oriented and thorough when completing work tasks.

What We Offer You

We believe that by continuously improving the quality of our benefits, we can help to raise the quality of life for our team members and their families. At First Quality you will receive:

• Competitive base salary and bonus opportunities
• Paid time off (three-week minimum)
• Medical, dental and vision starting day one
• 401(k) with employer match
• Paid parental leave
• Child and family care assistance (dependent care FSA with employer match up to $2500)
• Bundle of joy benefit (year's worth of free diapers to all team members with a new baby)
• Tuition assistance
• Wellness program with savings of up to $4,000 per year on insurance premiums
• ...and more!

First Quality is committed to protecting information under the care of First Quality Enterprises commensurate with leading industry standards and applicable regulations. As such, First Quality provides at least annual training regarding data privacy and security to employees who, as a result of their role specifications, may come in to contact with sensitive data.

First Quality is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification, or protected Veteran status.