Job Purpose

Develop, implement, maintain and improve Vollrath’s Supplier Quality Engineering processes.  Support supplier launch, and on-going activities at manufacturing locations and provide quality leadership during pre-production builds at suppliers.

Job Responsibilities:

• Support purchasing with the supplier approval process by assessing supplier manufacturing process capabilities. Develop critical suppliers.
• Perform supplier audits to drive process standardization, waste elimination and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate and specify critical product requirements with Engineering, Purchasing and Marketing to translate customer needs into supplied product requirements and specifications; Define process parameters and criteria to ensure supplier process capability is effective to meet product requirements. 
• Complete APQP activities with suppliers – lead risk and failure analysis to ensure functional specification requirements are fully met during design / process validation and PPAP.
• Provide supplier quality support for all manufacturing sites including plant engineering teams and business units. 
• Assist in the development of dimensional control strategies with suppliers.
• Assist in the design and procurement of gages and instruments with suppliers.
• Support and coach team members in the use of fundamental APQP tools (PPAP, DFMEA, PFMEA, Reliability Test Plans and Production Control Plans).
• Manage SCAR analysis, work with suppliers directly (including onsite visits) to create corrective action plans to address process failures.
• Collaborate with US and International based SQE’s to ensure operational readiness of new product launches.
• Provide structured problem-solving support - reactive (field failure or testing) and preventive (mitigate NPD risk).
• Internally communicate with Engineering, Purchasing, Program Management and Product Engineering on opportunities within the supply chain for quality improvement. 
• Other duties as assigned.

Experience & Education

• 1-3 years of experience in quality engineering and related disciplines including implementing and applying quality tools (APQP, FMEA, Control Plans, MSA, PPAP, SPC, GD&T) in a manufacturing environment.
• Bachelor's Degree in Industrial or Mechanical Engineering, preferred. 
• Minimum (1-3) years in APQP role.
• ASQ CQE or CQA desirable
• Auditor experience (ISO 9000 and TS 16949)
• Structured problem-solving experience (Six Sigma Green Belt or Shainin Red “X”) desired.

Travel Requirements:

Ability and willingness to travel (domestic/international) up to 20%