Quality Manager
Reports To: President
Classification: Exempt
Job Type: Full-Time
Position Summary
The Quality Manager is responsible for leading and maintaining the company's quality function and Quality Management System to ensure that products consistently meet customer, drawing, specification, and applicable regulatory requirements.
This is a hands-on leadership position in a precision manufacturing environment. The Quality Manager is expected to combine strong technical knowledge of machining, metrology, engineering drawings, and manufacturing processes with disciplined quality-system management and practical problem solving.
The Quality Manager will work closely with production, engineering, purchasing, suppliers, and customers to prevent quality problems, quickly resolve issues when they occur, improve manufacturing processes, and maintain a strong culture of quality throughout the organization.
The Quality Manager has the authority to place product on hold and stop production or shipment when there is a reasonable concern that product does not meet applicable requirements.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Quality Management System
- Own, maintain, and continually improve the company's Quality Management System.
- Ensure compliance with applicable customer requirements, quality standards, procedures, and internal processes.
- Lead preparation for and participation in customer, registrar, and other external quality audits.
- Plan and conduct internal audits and ensure that identified deficiencies are appropriately corrected.
- Maintain quality procedures, forms, records, and other required documentation.
- Ensure quality records are complete, accurate, traceable, and properly retained.
- Lead certification and recertification activities for applicable quality-management standards.
- Identify opportunities to simplify and improve the Quality Management System while maintaining necessary controls.
Inspection and Product Quality
- Develop and maintain appropriate inspection plans for incoming material, in-process production, and finished product.
- Determine appropriate inspection methods, equipment, sampling plans, and measurement techniques.
- Ensure products are inspected in accordance with drawings, specifications, control plans, customer requirements, and established procedures.
- Review and approve First Article Inspections prior to submission or release to the customer.
- Prepare, review, and submit First Article Inspection, PPAP, or similar customer-required quality documentation as applicable.
- Develop and maintain control plans, process flow diagrams, PFMEAs, inspection instructions, and related quality documentation where appropriate.
- Ensure proper identification, segregation, control, review, and disposition of nonconforming material.
- Maintain accurate records of product holds, nonconformances, dispositions, deviations, and other quality activity.
- Support production personnel and inspectors in resolving questions concerning drawings, specifications, inspection requirements, and product acceptance.
Metrology and Calibration
- Maintain the company's calibration system for measuring and inspection equipment.
- Ensure gauges and measuring equipment are properly calibrated, identified, maintained, and suitable for their intended use.
- Maintain complete and accurate calibration records.
- Identify and recommend appropriate inspection and metrology equipment needed to accurately and efficiently verify product requirements.
- Provide technical support regarding the proper selection and use of measurement equipment.
- Develop or oversee CMM and other automated inspection programs as required.
- Evaluate measurement-system capability and address measurement concerns when identified.
Nonconformance, Root Cause, and Corrective Action
- Lead investigations of internal and external quality problems.
- Perform or facilitate effective root-cause analysis using appropriate problem-solving methodologies.
- Develop, assign, and monitor corrective actions to ensure problems are addressed at their root cause and do not recur.
- Maintain internal and external corrective-action records and ensure actions are completed in a timely manner.
- Evaluate corrective actions for effectiveness following implementation.
- Work collaboratively with manufacturing personnel to develop practical corrective actions that improve quality without unnecessarily complicating the manufacturing process.
- Analyze recurring defects, scrap, rework, customer complaints, and other quality data to identify systemic opportunities for improvement.
Customer Quality
- Serve as the primary quality contact for customers regarding product-quality issues.
- Respond promptly and professionally to customer complaints, returns, corrective-action requests, and quality inquiries.
- Coordinate containment, root-cause investigation, corrective action, and customer communication when quality issues occur.
- Prepare customer-required corrective-action responses, including 8D or similar formats when applicable.
- Maintain accurate records of customer complaints, returns, corrective actions, and associated follow-up.
- Work proactively to protect and improve customer confidence in the company's quality performance.
Supplier Quality and Material Control
- Ensure purchased materials and externally provided processes meet applicable specifications and customer requirements.
- Ensure required material certifications, process certifications, and other supplier documentation are received, reviewed, traceable, and properly retained.
- Address supplier quality problems and coordinate supplier corrective actions when necessary.
- Evaluate supplier quality performance and participate in supplier qualification and evaluation activities.
- Conduct or participate in supplier audits when warranted by supplier performance, customer requirements, or business needs.
Process Control and Continuous Improvement
- Work with production and engineering personnel to ensure manufacturing processes are capable of consistently producing conforming product.
- Support validation of new or revised manufacturing processes before full production release when appropriate.
- Develop and maintain appropriate Statistical Process Control methods and control charts where beneficial or required.
- Use quality data to identify trends and opportunities for process improvement.
- Participate in continuous-improvement initiatives aimed at reducing defects, scrap, rework, customer complaints, and overall cost of poor quality.
- Support development of tooling, fixtures, gauges, and manufacturing methods where quality requirements are a significant consideration.
- Participate in new-product and new-process reviews to identify potential quality risks before production begins.
Training and Quality Culture
- Train employees on inspection requirements, measurement techniques, quality procedures, and other quality-related subjects as necessary.
- Ensure employees understand their responsibility for producing conforming product and following established processes.
- Maintain quality-related training documentation where required.
- Promote a culture in which quality problems are identified early, communicated openly, and resolved systematically rather than passed to the next operation or customer.
- Provide technical guidance and support to quality inspectors and other employees performing inspection activities.
Quality Performance and Reporting
- Establish, monitor, and report meaningful quality-performance measures.
- Track performance in areas such as customer complaints, customer returns, internal nonconformances, scrap and rework, corrective-action closure, supplier quality, calibration compliance, and other appropriate metrics.
- Identify adverse trends and develop action plans when performance does not meet expectations.
- Regularly communicate significant quality issues, risks, trends, and improvement opportunities to company leadership.
Qualifications
Required
- Five or more years of quality and/or manufacturing experience in a precision manufacturing environment.
- Strong working knowledge of machining and manufacturing processes.
- Demonstrated ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications, and customer requirements.
- Strong knowledge of Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T).
- Demonstrated knowledge and practical experience with precision measurement equipment, including tools such as:
- Calipers
- Micrometers
- Height gauges
- Bore gauges
- Optical comparators
- Surface-finish equipment
- Hardness testing equipment
- CMMs and/or other automated dimensional inspection equipment
- Experience developing inspection plans and determining appropriate measurement methods.
- Experience with calibration systems and measurement-equipment control.
- Working knowledge of Quality Management Systems and applicable ISO quality principles.
- Experience with nonconforming material, root-cause analysis, corrective action, and preventive quality controls.
- Experience with First Article Inspections and customer quality documentation.
- Knowledge of SPC and statistical quality-control methods.
- Strong problem-solving and process-troubleshooting skills.
- Strong organizational and documentation skills.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work directly and professionally with customers and suppliers.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive assignments to completion with limited supervision.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, Word, and other common business software.
- Work Schedule: This is a full-time, exempt position. The position generally requires approximately 45–50 hours per week. Additional hours, including Saturdays, may be required as needed to support production schedules, customer requirements, audits, quality issues, or other business needs.
Preferred
- Experience programming and operating a CMM or similar automated inspection system.
- Experience preparing PPAP documentation, PFMEAs, process flow diagrams, and control plans.
- Experience leading internal and external quality audits.
- Prior responsibility for maintaining an ISO-certified Quality Management System.
- Experience supervising or providing technical leadership to quality inspectors or technicians.
- Formal quality training or certification, such as ASQ certification, is beneficial but not required.
Skills and Characteristics
The successful candidate should be:
- Highly detail-oriented while still able to understand the broader manufacturing and business impact of quality decisions.
- Comfortable working both on the production floor and with customers and senior management.
- Practical and solutions-oriented.
- Persistent in driving problems through root cause and permanent corrective action.
- Capable of making sound independent decisions.
- Able to respectfully challenge processes or decisions when quality requirements are at risk.
- Organized and disciplined in maintaining records and following through on commitments.
- Able to balance quality, delivery, and cost considerations without compromising customer requirements.
- A strong communicator who can work effectively across production, engineering, management, customers, and suppliers.
- Committed to continuous improvement and prevention rather than relying solely on final inspection to identify problems.
Performance Expectations
Success in this position will be measured by the Quality Manager's ability to:
- Consistently maintain compliance with customer and Quality Management System requirements.
- Reduce customer complaints and external quality incidents.
- Reduce internal defects, scrap, and rework.
- Ensure timely and effective closure of corrective actions.
- Maintain an effective calibration and inspection system.
- Improve supplier quality where necessary.
- Maintain accurate and complete quality documentation.
- Identify and address quality risks before they reach the customer.
- Develop a company-wide culture of accountability for product quality.
Pay: $60,000.00 - $95,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
