Quality Manager, Americas

Company Description

Smiths Interconnect, is a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance interconnect solutions. Our products are used in mission-critical applications across industries such as aerospace, defense, telecommunications, and industrial markets. At Smiths Interconnect, we are committed to innovation, quality, and providing cutting-edge solutions that connect the world's most demanding systems.

Smiths Interconnect is part of Smiths Group. For over 170 years, Smiths has been pioneering progress by engineering for a better future. We serve millions of people every year, to help create a safer, more efficient and productive, and better-connected world across four global markets: energy, security & defense, space & aerospace and general industrial. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, Smiths employs c.16,000 colleagues in over 50 countries.

Job Description

Job Purpose:

Under the direction of the Global Director of Engineer and Quality, the Americas Quality Manager will supervise Quality functions and managers in the US and Mexico.. Will also drive strategies process improvements and other initiatives. Incumbent will partner with other leaders in the business to ensure that the strategy is fully aligned, understood, communicated, and implemented globally. The successful candidate will have substantial experience in a multi-site organization in both influencing direction and management. They must be very comfortable in presenting their ideas and strategies to all levels of management including senior leadership. Key elements of the role include:

• Conduct recruitment, selection, deployment, leadership, coaching, mentoring, and development of Quality Managers and Engineers, driving continuous improvement in resource efficiency and effectiveness within the global quality team.
• Lead the identification and execution of team activities / resources required to support strategies / initiatives.
• Contribute to areas of systems, processes, and tools.
• Contribute to enhancements to global systems, processes and tools to support changing / evolving global needs / requirements.
• Support business quality and performance criteria guidelines.
• Assist and support escalation and resolution of business quality performance issues.

Responsibilities:

• Directly or indirectly recruits, selects, develops, leads, coaches and mentors the business quality resources, focusing on continuous improvement in efficiency and effectiveness.
• Participate in development of global systems, processes and tools ensuring that market sector and site requirements / needs have been considered and incorporated wherever possible.
• Drive continuous improvement in business quality performance.
• Drive deployment of global systems, processes and tools.
• Provide systems assessment support as needed.
• Identify existing and future resource needs for the business to support strategies and future needs.
• Drive enhancements to global systems, processes and tools to support changing / evolving global needs / requirements.
• Drive business sites' compliance to established global systems, processes and tools.
• Ensure that global systems, processes and tools are communicated to the appropriate resources with the teams and sites.
• Measure conformance and initiates actions when non-conformances are identified
• Ensure the timely and effective communication of changes / enhancements to Interconnect requirements / expectations
• Facilitate, coach, and mentor business unit quality and operational teams on Root Cause Analysis and effective corrective and preventive actions processes.
• Develop, manage, and maintain quality performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of the business quality, development, and management functions.
• Recruit, select and deploy Quality Engineers, and ensuring that capable and qualified resources are deployed.
• Identify training and development needs for each direct report. Create and execute training plans, addressing the needs identified.
• Conduct effective Employee Appraisals in compliance with global HR processes with the aim of improving employee performances.

Qualifications

Technical Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Experience required in large multinational companies. Must be from a company that has multiple sites and has leadership experience working across all sites.

• Demonstrated performance in in multi-site, multi-national environments.

• Proven capability to lead large cross functional, global teams in problem solving, process improvements, and solution implementation.

• Knowledgeable and hands on experience in the application of Lean and/or Six Sigma including at least some of the following tools:

• Value Stream Mapping, Cpk/Ppk, GR&R, SPC, Control Plans, Sampling Plans, Kaizen, 5S, Statistical Analysis, SMED, 5 why's, Root Cause analysis, 8D, VOC, QFD, Error Proofing, Robust Design, FMEA, Cause and Effect Diagrams, Pareto Analysis, etc.

• Experience and familiarity with Performance / Process Excellence and Built In Quality models is highly desirable, as are formal Lean and 6-sigma certifications.

• Bachelor's degree in Quality or a Technical Discipline (i.e. IE, EE, ME, QE). Master Degree in relevant discipline is preferred.

• 15+ years Quality / Operations / Engineering experience in management role in a world-class manufacturing setting, with demonstrated success in both quality leadership and business process excellence.

• Additional certification such as BB/MBB, CQE, CQM, and / or ISO Lead Auditor is highly desirable.

• Proven problem solving skills and abilities required. It is expected that candidates will be prepared to share examples during interviews.

• Experienced in working in Design area with Design Teams

• Familiarity with and experience in applying Six Sigma methodologies required (qualified Green Belt / Black Belt preferred)

• Demonstrated skills must include global leadership, strong written and oral communication, resource management, problem solving, process improvement, conflict resolution and process development / deployment administration and change management.

• Experience working within a maquiladora framework is strongly preferred.

• English is primary language but helpful if candidate understands Spanish as well.

• Travel: International and domestic up to 30%.

Impact and Scope:

• Lead global business to drive improvements in KPIs and improve overall customer satisfaction.
• Leads global business through a strategy developed in conjunction with the EMEA Quality leas and the Global Director of Engineering and Quality.
• Global Quality Systems Standardization

Key Internal and External Relationships:

• Partnering with Plant Management, Sales, Engineering and Marketing to improve manufacturing and business processes.

Additional Information

With colleagues stretching across the globe, we are proud of our diversity. To foster inclusivity, we run employee resource groups (ERGs) to provide a safe space for employees to connect and support each other. Our cross-business ERGs include Veterans, Pride Network, Black Employee Network, Women@Work Network, and Neurodiversity.

Across our company, we recognize excellence, culminating in the Smiths Excellence Awards, our annual celebration of the most extraordinary activities, people, and projects that best showcase our strengths and help drive our business forward. We announce these on our annual Smiths Day, a global celebration of Smiths around our network.

Join us for a great career with competitive compensation and benefits, while helping engineer a better future.

We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment regardless of color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, economic status, disability, age, or any other legally protected characteristics. We are proud to be an inclusive company with values grounded in equality and ethics, where we celebrate, support, and embrace diversity.

At no time during the hiring process will Smiths Group, nor any of our recruitment partners ever request payment to enable participation - including, but not limited to, interviews or testing. Avoid fraudulent requests by applying jobs directly through our career's website (Careers - Smiths Group plc)