Project Quality Theme Lead

Salary: £60,000 – £78,000 per year

Project Quality Theme Lead

Warwickshire-based with European travel

£60,000 – £78,000 per annum

Permanent position

ROLE SUMMARY:

The core purpose of this role is to project manage Supplier development activity and act as the interface between the organisation and the Supplier Development Engineers.

They will be required to develop the processes to support the activity and be able to problem solve technical issues and support quality themes to improve overall vehicle quality.

The role is primarily based in Warwickshire, UK and there will times when you will need to visit Suppliers or be in Europe to support pre-production build events. When in Europe, it would be expected that you will attend for a 2-week period, but this would only be occasional.

There is no team to directly manage in this role, but as a Project Manager they would have to have influence with the internal functions and Supplier Development Engineers.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Identification of quality themes and key methods to ensure quality requirements are achieved at product launch
• Continual tracking of the project status and escalate and resolve issues to meet the requirement of the business
• Identify the project risks and ensure appropriate actions in place to minimise occurrence of risk
• Take a supporting role with the development and maturation of the complex commodities
• Confirm supplier capability and feed into the supplier nomination process
• Development of suppliers where gaps exist against company requirements
• Reporting project status to internal stakeholders at the required gateways
• Development and maintenance of the PLM system to enable efficient project tracking, documentation approval and storage

REQUIRED SKILLS, COMPETENCIES AND PERSONAL QUALITIES:

• You need to be able to summarise and report the current Project status to stakeholders at required intervals
• You should fully understand the steps from sourcing to mass production

• Design for Manufacture, Significant Characteristics, DFMEA, PFMEA, Control Plans, Process Capability, and Measurement System Analysis
• OEE and Run at Rates
• Read engineering drawings and understand measurement method and production validation requirements
• Appreciation of manufacturing processes and key controls used in the automotive industry supply base
• Demonstrate good project management skills (Prince 2 or Agile qualification desirable)
• Qualified Engineer (ideally to Degree level but not essential as other criteria will be assessed)
• Excellent leadership skills and cast a positive shadow
• Build and foster relationships with internal stakeholders and suppliers
• Have integrity when making decisions
• Enjoy problem solving and have a logical approach to understand root cause and apply appropriate countermeasures
• Effective communication skills in both written and verbal
• Be able to negotiate to overcome and resolve obstacles
• Achieve deadlines, work under pressure and remain resilient when faced with challenges
• Willingness to learn, adopt new ideas and challenge existing methods
• Take ownership of the project and provide solutions to problems
• Act in a timely manner to prevent risks from the project impacting company milestones

AUTHORITIES INCLUDE:

Decision-making:

Judgment for supplier capability to supply parts (quality and delivery)

Agree root cause analysis and countermeasure proposals

Implementation and improvement of process to meet the needs of the company

Make judgement at gateways for the progress of the project

Agree quality theme strategies to achieve quality deliverables

Managerial:

Arrange project reviews with the supplier engineer teams

Ensure tasks and deadlines for the project are cascaded effectively to the team

Summarise and report the status of the project for supplier engineering

Ensuring quality themes are progressing to plan with the stakeholders

REGULAR TASKS INCLUDE:

Tracking status of the project against the deliverables to achieve each milestone (e.g. nomination, tooling GO release, maturation status, quality and volume verification)

Create project status reports for gateway evaluations, readiness for pre-production build events, and concern closure

Progress quality themes with engineering and quality to ensure company targets are achieved

Provide a communication link between the project team, engineering and quality to the supplier engineers

Confirmation for the impact timing and cost of design changes

Provide support to the supplier engineers teams with their activities, including activities at suppliers

Training and development of the supplier engineers and any other tasks as assigned by a line manager

If you are interested in utilising your existing project-based Quality Engineering, Supplier & Process Risk Analysis skills, and excellent communication abilities, then please apply with an up-to-date CV.