Quality Engineer - Customer Support

IEM, (Industrial Electric Manufacturing, Inc.) is the largest independent full-line manufacturer of custom electrical distribution and power quality equipment in North America. IEM has delivered customer-specific solutions to meet the ever-changing power requirements of growth industries in North America for over half a century. This position offers an exciting opportunity within an innovative, employee-oriented company

Purpose Of Position

To be the primary point of contact for the Customer and Commercial Teams about quality-related issues. Collect root cause analysis data and provide corrective feedback due to quality issues. Responsible for ensuring that the products produced meet quality standards required to minimize quality costs and maximize customer satisfaction whilst ensuring that procedures and processes are adhered to. Ensure incoming materials meet required quality standards. Support new product introductions to ensure the robustness of product. Work in a team environment to develop and implement best practices that emphasize defect prevention, reduction in variation and waste and provide for continuous improvements in meeting all customer requirements. Manage the customer specific requirements and coordinate technical support. Work on many phases or sub-tasks of projects or entire projects of moderate complexity, with results impacting on project completion. Work mostly independently under general supervision, reviewed at project milestones and/or on completion by Senior Management.

Key Responsibilities

General and Task Management

• Build strong, working relationships with customer and in-house commercial teams to ensure complete and transparent communication and support.
• Coordinate activities to evaluate and resolve sometimes technically challenging engineering and quality-related problems encountered in the customer’s facility
• Determine and collect relevant data for product and installation improvements to understand any problems and decide when to appropriately escalate issues
• Investigate reports of defective, damaged or malfunctioning parts, assemblies, equipment or systems to determine nature and scope of problem that the customer is experiencing
• Initiate containment of stock at all locations and prevent further nonconforming production
• Investigate the fault and extent of potential recall
• Examine defective part for conformance to engineering design drawings or specifications
• Identify anomalies on engineering drawings back to the design function
• Maintain records to oversee recording of information by others to ensure engineering drawings and documents are current and that engineering related production problems and resolutions are documented
• Feedback to company what the issues are
• Evaluate findings to formulate corrective action plan and coordinate implementation
• Control clean cut-offs throughout and ensure containment is managed while on-going corrective actions are implemented
• Organize any re-work of finished goods that may be necessary
• Report into the customer what the root causes were to quality issues, the containment measures and corrective actions taken to ensure resolution
• Review engineering specifications, orders and related information to maintain current knowledge of manufacturing methods, procedures and activities
• Assist with training of quality awareness
• Monitor and report on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in order to adhere to process and prevent occurrence of any non-conformity relating to product, process or system
• Assist with new product introduction, representing the customer and support and manage pre-production trial runs and first off sample approvals
• Promote the use of customer preferred techniques for continuous improvement such as Six-Sigma, Poka-Yoke (Error Proofing), Kaizen
• Participate in the development and refinement of Design and Process FMEA’s (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) and represent the customer’s views
• Manage and coordinate customer PPM, DO, DPU, cost recovery and supplier warranty indicators
• Keep up with current and developing manufacturing and engineering trends that concern the customer’s product
• Undertake special projects as required
• Contribute to continuous improvement activities
• Quality control of work by appropriate reviews
• Support and lead process improvement activities
• Write reports and present progress at project meetings and to clients
• Plan projects or subtasks so they may be tracked and presented
• Perform root cause analysis and resolve problems
• Provide advice and guidance to management teams as required
• Provide support to all internal departments to maintain and improve product quality
• Communicate efficiently with IEM and customer’s management
• Liaise and communicate with other departments, customers, and other service providers
• Participate in cross-functional teams in the development of new products or changes related to current products in meeting customer requirements
• Attend various meetings and action/communicate instructions
• Develop quality relationships with the customer
  
  

Self-Management

• Comply with the Health, Safety and Environmental Policies both in-house and at the customer
• Assertive, resilient and welcomes change
• Engages interest and participation of others and has a collaborative approach to working with others
• Proactively contributes to the team
• Actively committed to teams’ development
• Is self-aware
• Shows moral courage, openness and honesty
  
  

Skills And Attributes

• Exercise substantial initiative/judgement in work methods and interpreting goals
• Work independently with minimal supervision
• Experienced Use of 8D and CARs
• Knowledge of quality systems
• Strong knowledge of APQP, PPAP, FMEA
• Lean Manufacturing knowledge
• Knowledge of ISO9001
• Knowledge of measurement
• Understanding of engineering drawings and manufacturing processes
• Ability to work in a diverse and dynamic environment
• Planning and prioritizing activities
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Negotiation skills
• Ability to present data effectively
• Problem-solving skills
• Understanding of Health and Safety practices
• Team working skills
• Analytical skills
• Understanding of cost and financial impacts
• Ability to work on own initiative
• Commercial and financial awareness would be advantageous
• Good understanding of customer expectations and deliverables with an awareness of the impact of failure/cost of poor quality