Quality Manager

Venture capital supported make-to-order industry is experiencing increased number of new contracts from both long term customers and through new business development efforts. Growth is due to the unique engineering, quality standards, and manufacturing processes that this company offers to their customers. Expectations are that production will double over next 3-6 months and that business will be 24x5 in 2nd half of 2010. 

OPPORTUNITY:  Quality department needs a hands-on, can-do, results-driven leader. This is an empowering role to create a quality department that will be a resource to internal and external customers. The #1 goal of this role is to establish a plant quality assurance system that promotes customer satisfaction and positively impacts financial performance within a make-to-order, low volume/tight tolerance engineering and production setting. Use Kaizen and Six Sigma principles to champion continuous improvement efforts and defect reduction initiatives. Establish an effective Quality Management System and raise the performance of production output. Key functions are:

1. Develop, implement, and manage all quality programs, policies, and standards.


2. Manage quality assurance systems (calibration, auditing) and personnel (Quality Technicians, Quality Engineers).


3. Support concurrent engineering efforts by participating in design development projects representing quality assurance and the customer.


4. Design, implement and document procedures for process control, process improvement, testing and inspection.


5. Establish and implement metrics (process capability, control charts, measurement quality) for data collection, monitoring system effectiveness, trending and predictability.


6. Implement root-cause analysis and problem solving activities to identify corrective actions and process improvements.


7. Analyze product specifications to establish cost-effective requirements for ease of manufacture and reproducibility.


8. Develop quality planning and process certification tools and methods for all product lines.


9. Monitor vendor performance and establish criteria and rating system for critical vendors.


10. Review customer purchase orders, contracts and change requests and ensure that the necessary criteria and provisions are included in quality and process plans.


11. Report to management team on quality issues, trends and losses.


12. Review suppliers purchase orders and establish supplier quality requirements.

REQUIREMENTS:  BS (MS preferred) in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering or related Quality field. 8+ years experience in QA systems implementation and with 4+ years as a CQE/CQM in a make-to-order or make-to-contract manufacturing environment, preferably in the ceramics, plastics, composites or metals industries (i.e. plastic molds, CNC machining). Pluses are experience with Six Sigma, Kaizen, ISO 9001, and statistical process controls.