The Quality & Safety Lead is responsible for leading U.S. Hose & Coupling's quality and workplace safety programs while overseeing the final inspection and release process for finished hose assemblies.
This is a hands-on, production-floor leadership position focused on preventing defects, maintaining safe work practices, improving processes, and ensuring finished products meet customer and company requirements before shipment.
Production employees and supervisors remain responsible for producing quality products and working safely. The Quality & Safety Lead owns the systems, verification, training, and controls that support those expectations.
Key Responsibilities:
Quality
- Maintain and improve quality procedures, inspection standards, work instructions, calibration records, and quality documentation.
- Establish and maintain inspection requirements for hose assemblies and related products.
- Lead nonconformance, root-cause, and corrective-action activities.
- Investigate customer quality issues, returns, and recurring defects.
- Monitor supplier quality issues and coordinate corrective actions with Purchasing.
- Support customer certifications, First Article Inspections, audits, and other quality requirements.
- Maintain appropriate product, material, and inspection traceability.
- Ensure employees have access to current drawings, specifications, and quality requirements.
- Track quality performance and identify opportunities to reduce defects, rework, scrap, and customer returns.
Final Inspection & Release
- Lead the final finishing, inspection, and release process for completed assemblies.
- Ensure required cleaning, testing, inspection, tagging, documentation, and product protection are completed before release.
- Maintain clear separation and control of accepted, rejected, and held product.
- Train and qualify employees authorized to perform final inspection and release.
- Coordinate priorities and workflow with Production and Shipping.
- Maintain consistent standards for product cleanliness, labeling, capping, bundling, and customer-ready presentation.
- Stop or hold product when requirements have not been met.
Safety
- Lead the facility's day-to-day workplace safety program.
- Conduct safety inspections and help identify and correct workplace hazards.
- Lead incident and near-miss investigations and follow corrective actions through completion.
- Coordinate required employee safety training and maintain appropriate records.
- Support safe practices involving pressure testing, welding, chemicals, material handling, PPE, machine guarding, and other production activities.
- Coordinate with qualified outside safety or regulatory resources when specialized expertise is required.
- Promote employee reporting of hazards, near misses, and improvement opportunities.
Leadership & Continuous Improvement
- Train and coach quality and finishing-cell employees.
- Work with production supervisors to prevent defects at the source rather than relying solely on final inspection.
- Lead practical continuous-improvement efforts.
- Communicate significant quality or safety concerns promptly to leadership.
- Provide regular reporting on quality, safety, and finishing-cell performance.
Authority
The Quality & Safety Lead has authority to stop production, testing, or shipment when a significant safety risk or product-quality concern exists and to quarantine product requiring additional inspection, testing, or disposition.
Changes to customer requirements, specifications, or acceptance of nonconforming product require appropriate management, engineering, or customer authorization.
Performance Measures
Performance will be evaluated using measures including:
- Customer quality issues and escapes
- First-pass quality and rework
- Corrective-action completion
- Calibration and audit compliance
- Safety incidents, near misses, and corrective actions
- Safety training completion
- On-time final release
- Finishing-cell productivity and workflow
- Product presentation and documentation accuracy
Qualifications
- 2+ years of experience in manufacturing quality, safety, production, or a related industrial environment.
- Experience with inspection, nonconforming product, root-cause analysis, and corrective action.
- Working knowledge of manufacturing safety practices.
- Ability to read drawings, specifications, work orders, and inspection requirements.
- Ability to use common dimensional and thread-measuring equipment.
- Strong communication, organization, problem-solving, and leadership skills.
- Comfortable working directly on the production floor and holding employees accountable to established standards.
Preferred:
- Hose assembly, fluid power, welding, fabrication, or pressure-testing experience.
- ISO 9001, OSHA, internal auditing, Lean/5S, or similar quality/safety experience.
- ERP or manufacturing-system experience, including NetSuite.
- Relevant quality, safety, welding inspection, or Lean/Six Sigma training or certifications.
Physical & Work Environment
Regular production-floor presence is required. The position involves standing, walking, inspecting assemblies, using measuring equipment, and working around normal manufacturing operations. Reasonable accommodations will be provided as required.
Pay: $28.00 - $30.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
Work Location: In person
