Specific Role Focus Areas
Pilot Trials, Scale-Up, Commercialization & Factory Support
Support pilot-scale and plant-scale trials for new products, process changes, equipment modifications, and technology introductions.
Assist Operations and Engineering during startup, commissioning support, process validation, and troubleshooting activities.
Collect and organize trial data, observations, sample requirements, and follow-up actions during plant or pilot work.
Support manufacturing teams by contributing to process guides, startup documentation, and critical control parameter definition.
Experimentation, Data Analysis & Technical Documentation
Design or assist with experiments using DOE, structured trials, capability assessments, or other analytical methods appropriate to the project scope.
Analyze process data such as temperature, pressure, moisture, airflow, oil quality metrics, throughput, and product attributes to identify trends and opportunities.
Prepare technical summaries, reports, SOPs, trial documentation, scale-up recommendations, and presentation materials.
Document technical risks, assumptions, conclusions, and recommended next steps in a clear and disciplined manner.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Project Support
Partner with Product Development to align formulation needs with process design and manufacturing capability.
Collaborate with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Procurement, suppliers, and external partners to support process-learning objectives.
Communicate project updates, technical issues, and recommendations to cross-functional team members and management.
Provide hands-on direction to technicians or trial support resources when assigned.
Capability Building & Continuous Improvement
Support longer-term platform capability work in areas such as extrusion, frying, baking, popcorn processing, pretzels, airflow systems, seasoning application, and oil management.
Identify practical productivity, quality, simplification, energy, or process-control improvement opportunities.
Stay current on emerging snack-processing equipment, pilot capabilities, and relevant supplier technologies.
Minimum Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Foundational technical knowledge in food science, food engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, process engineering, or related discipline.
Comfortable operating or supporting laboratory, pilot-plant, and/or factory equipment in food-processing environments.
Basic working knowledge of GMPs, food safety, sanitary design, analytical techniques, research methodology, and experimentation.
Understanding of one or more snack-processing technologies, with ability to quickly learn others: popcorn processing, extrusion, frying, baking, pretzels, seasoning application, oil systems, moisture control, thermal processing, airflow, or dough systems.
Ability to apply structured problem-solving and data-driven root-cause analysis to technical questions.
Strong computer skills, including Microsoft Teams, Excel, PowerPoint, and basic data-analysis tools; DOE/statistical analysis experience preferred.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to summarize findings clearly for technical and non-technical audiences.
Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-changing R&D and manufacturing environment.
Hands-on mechanical aptitude and willingness to work in plant, pilot, and lab environments with heat, oil, noise, and industrial equipment.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements
Education and Experience:
Other Requirements
Ability to work in plant, pilot-plant, and lab environments.
Travel 20-50% depending on project, supplier, and plant-support needs.
Must be capable of lifting approximately 40 lbs during pilot-scale and equipment work.
Must be comfortable around heat, oil systems, noise, and industrial equipment.
Contractor term, work schedule, onboarding requirements, vendor administration, and site-access details to be defined by the hiring manager and contracting partner.
WE THE TEKWISSEN PEOPLE
TekWissen offers you a broader portfolio of services, industry-leading solutions, and the meaningful innovations that give you greater flexibility and speed to respond to market dynamics, reduced costs and risk to improve enterprise performance, and increased productivity to enable growth.
To keep pace with global market demands, TekWissen keeps its finger on the pulse of change. Our organized approach to guiding a project from its inception to closure. Managing projects is becoming more and more important as we enter the digital era. To cope with the pace that this transition demands, a method is required to manage projects so they can yield quality work, while incorporating efficient use of time and resources.
Project involves identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them.
It is important to perform quality planning during the Planning Process and should be done alongside the other project planning processes because changes in the quality will likely require changes in the other planning processes, or the desired product quality may require a detailed risk analysis of an identified problem. It is important to remember that quality should be planned, designed, then built in, not added on after the fact.
Capabilities and accomplishments in one TekWissen business enhance the opportunity for success in the others. Put simply, TekWissen's unique combination of attributes promotes success.