Process Engineer

Position Summary:  

Successful Panel Cell Team Manager / Process Engineer will enjoy the challenges of day-to-day operations along with providing leadership to hourly team members. Panel Cell Team Engineers have the main responsibility of ensuring that team members have the necessary skills, resources, and tools to achieve desired goals in the areas of safety, quality, productivity. Additionally, the Team Engineers are involved in all day-to-day operations of our busy manufacturing facility, including, but not limited to, hiring, mentoring, performance & process improvement, production, quality, & safety.

 Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:

• Optimize current processes within the panels department through the development and implementation of improved procedures, systems, and equipment.

• Evaluate and identify opportunities to eliminate waste associated with production activities and how team members interact with the process and equipment.

• Assist with the preparation of standard work

• Participate in and lead kaizen events, such as VSMs, 5s, safety, etc.

• Maintain high quality standards through on-the-floor interaction with employees to ensure quality and accuracy in each step of the production process.

• Optimize current processes within the panel cell department through the development and implementation of improved procedures, systems, and equipment.

• Evaluate and identify opportunities to eliminate waste associated with production activities and how team members interact with the process and equipment

• Perform time and motion analysis to support production standards

• Assist with the preparation of standard work

• Leads Kaizen events, such as 5S and VSM’s

• Assists with determining proper inventory quantities, storage options, and maximizing flow

• Maintain high quality standards through on-the-floor interaction with employees to ensure quality and accuracy in each step of the production process

• Support improvement projects, including the development and execution of plans to support additional production lines or increased work volume and develop estimates for the equipment, systems, and personnel needed to complete various projects

• Coordinate/lead problem solving activities on plant floor with multi-department resources

• Work with other departments upstream and downstream to ensure cohesiveness with the departments.

• Perform 1 to 1s with the panels team members and conduct annual reviews

• Conduct team meetings, ensure all safety training s are completed for the team members

• Track productivity, quality, and safety metrics for the department – as well as any other relevant KPIs

• Set expectations regarding performance, behaviors, and results and hold team accountable.

• Ensure the team has the resources they need to deliver results. When they do not, actively seek the resources that get them what they need.

• Perform other essential responsibilities as deemed necessary.

Provide leadership for the team to help them meet & exceed operational goals

•  Safety: lead by example.  Embrace our safety first culture, understand our safety rules, and contribute to the overall safety program through improvements, expectation setting, and role-modeling proper safe behaviors.

• Quality: Understand the expectations of customers. Guide teams in understanding customers’ quality expectations and ensure they strive for the best quality.  Lead quality improvements.

• Yield: Ask questions, fully understand the process in order to coach the team to make good decisions regarding yield. 

• Productivity: Clearly understand productivity goals. Ask questions, encourage the team to ask questions and participate in activities that improve productivity. Tutor and ensure they understand what needs to happen to meet productivity goals.

Lead High Performance Process

• Accountability: Set expectations regarding performance, behaviors, and results and hold team accountable. Ensure the team has the resources they need to deliver results.  When they do not, actively seek the resources that get them what they need.

• Drive Improvement: Understand Lean principles and coach the team on standard work, 5S, and the daily management system. Lead the team in basic continuous improvements such as a 5S event, development of standard work, or a Kaizen event. Constantly be open to better ways of doing the job and providing better services and products. Continuously maximize warehouse space for optimal efficiency. Deploy best practices for improved pick and ship flow to increase productivity.

• Sustainability: Lead by example. Embrace our efforts to be sustainable. Encourage the teams to recycle and maintain the cleanliness and integrity of their work areas.

• Treat others, as we want to be treated: Encourage healthy team based behaviors, listen, communicate company goals to your team and provide feedback on actual results. Pass relevant information to your team and between teams.

• Teamwork: Help team succeed. Use leader standard work to ensure processes are followed. Recognize team successes and help correct failures while ensuring time at work is enjoyable.

• Do the right thing: Understand and embrace the principles of High Performance Work Teams. In every action do what is right for the business, the customer, and fellow team members. Coach team members to embrace HPWT principle based decision-making.  Moves the team forward in team leadership, decision-making, and self-direction.

Supervisory Responsibilities                                                    

Embrace HW‘s operating principles as the way to guide behaviors and decision making daily with every course of action for yourself and your team. Mentor and coach team members to understand our organization's goals, policies & procedures.  Address team issues and resolve problems timely. Holds each team member accountable for good decision-making and team support behaviors, confidently deals with performance issues as appropriate.

Essential Functions    

• Committed to making positive change, but remaining flexible and able to adapt

• Willing to take on a broad range of responsibilities including coaching and managing people, processes, and tasks

• Demonstrate ability to multi task and to adapt to a quickly changing manufacturing environment

• Flexible and able to adapt to company growth and evolving responsibilities

• Willing to role model High Performance work team behaviors and develop these on our teams

• Excellent communications and interpersonal skills. Frequent communications with all internal functions, management, carriers, vendors, suppliers, and other parties.

• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail

• Interested in company results

• Treat people with respect

• Commitment to working safely

• Flexibility in working different shift schedules to include occasional weekends.

• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions

• Strong lean manufacturing experience especially in continuous improvement, elimination of waste, 5S, Kaizen events, value stream mapping and visual management.

• Able to initiate, plan, direct, and execute process improvement projects.

• Solid experience in: Work flow mapping, work cell layout improvements

• Knowledge and understanding of packaging design validation standards, drafting and specification standards

• Understanding of process improvement and quality improvement concepts

• Excellent problem solving and decision making skills

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily as well as the ability to handle situations by working as a team.

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education and/or Experience                                                     

College /technical degree and/or High School Diploma with relevant equivalent work experience

Minimum of 2 (two) years of supervisory experience preferred.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the responsibilities of the job, the team member is required to talk and hear. The team member is often required to sit and use his or her hands and fingers, to handle or feel. The team member is occasionally required to stand, walk, reach with arms and hands, climb or balance, and to stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl. Vision abilities required by this job include close vision. Specific vision abilities required by this job include ability to accurately compare color and pattern of products to quality control standards. Frequent requirement for attention to detail; prolonged use of a computer terminal, telephones and other electronic equipment. The team member must be able to lift and /or move up to 50 pounds. 

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those a team member encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate to occasionally loud and PPE is required. Appropriate hearing protection while in the plant is required as noise levels within the facility meet OSHA requirements for hearing protection equipment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers and filing cabinets. Team Managers typically work between an office environment and the production/logistics floor but the purpose of the project may sometimes take them to non-standard workplaces. The noise level in the work environment can be loud. 

Highwood provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all team members and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by the law.   This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.