Mechanical Engineering Supervisor

Experience Requirements:

Technical
● 15+ years in engineering with 5+ years in a Senior Engineer role.
● Experience in designing and releasing products from concept to launch and support lifecycle phases, with a clear ability to deliver new, often highly innovative, concepts.
● Knowledge and proficiency in 3D CAD, with SolidWorks preferred.
● Skilled in applying fundamental engineering principles involving the calculation of failure analysis using stress, strain, and fatigue.
● Extensive knowledge of the mechanical properties of various materials including ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics, and elastomers.
● Preferred experience with designing and developing electromechanical engineering and/or 'smart' products with digital IoT capabilities.
● Familiarity with traditional stage gate development processes as well as agile design processes.

Customer Engagement
● Extensive firsthand experience and knowledge of conveyor systems in the appropriate industry.
● Proven ability to professionally engage with decision-makers and technical counterpartsn at end customers, belt manufacturers, and conveyor OEMs for both strategic accounts and other sales endeavors.

Leadership
● Proven ability to lead teams that design and develop mechanical, electrical, electronic, and control systems for an industry and/or product line.
● Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to lead efforts to identify and implement corrective actions.
● Experienced in consulting and guiding other engineering personnel in various aspects of their work such as customer engagement, ECOs, existing product enhancements, and new applications.
● Experience working with a multicultural, globally/remote-located team preferred.

Physical Requirements:
● Exposure to elements in plant environments, including work on conveyors at ground level and elevated locations in both controlled and uncontrolled climate conditions.
● Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 20% of the time, sometimes over weekends. A driver's license is required.

Highly Weighted Competencies:

Creativity
● Facilitates brainstorming and problem-solving sessions.
● Inspires creativity within the group.
● Comfortable with risk-taking and admitting mistakes quickly to develop recovery strategies.
● Embraces critical feedback to reach the best solution.
● Searches for new ways to approach problem-solving, applying solutions from other disciplines and industries.
● Consistently delivers creative solutions to problems, either directly or by fostering ideas through others.
● Comfortable with highly open-ended assignments that may involve completely new approaches or technologies.
● Seeks to understand problems from various perspectives, especially the end customer's point of view.
● Uses multiple methods to generate ideas for solutions, including new techniques like Sprint Events.

Design/Technical Analysis
● Solves complex problems with a new perspective using new and existing solutions.
● Sought out by all levels of engineers and management for answers in their area of expertise.
● Proficiency and understanding of technical methods and requirements outside their functional area.
● Actively cross-checks the work of peers and junior staff.
● Identifies where to find technical information from other functional areas.
● Acts as a mentor and contributes to knowledge management repositories.
● Authority on existing methods and tools for solving various engineering problems within their expertise.
● Works with the team to identify and improve existing methods.
● Learns and applies best practices.
● Checks and approves the work of others.
● Creates standardized approaches, documentation, or templates to ease the solution of similar problems in the future across multiple engineering disciplines.
● Conducts detailed prediction calculations (e.g., stress, strain, fatigue, power consumption, costing, heat transfer, ROI).
● Ensures best practices are followed during design reviews.

Customer Understanding
● Deep understanding of customer needs in a specific market or industry.
● Develops and leverages new channels to understand customer needs or anticipate shifting markets.
● Translates knowledge into meaningful project decisions resulting in winning outcomes.
● Sought out internally for advice on customer preferences in specific markets related to their expertise.

Decision Making Ability
● Full design decision responsibility and accountability.
● Prioritizes projects and activities factoring in technical constraints, stakeholder requirements, and company objectives.
● Keeps all parties informed as appropriate.
● Serves as a valuable resource for design decisions for the engineering team.
● Consulted within areas of expertise by other engineers and management.
● Actively participates in design reviews for all projects within the industry team.
● Reviews technical input of the team and makes recommendations where necessary.
● Determines best practices and influences the technical direction of the design process.
● Mentors the team in applying the correct decision-making process or tool.

Delegation
● Broad responsibility that includes delegating tasks to team members in the functional area and others outside their scope of influence (e.g., manufacturing, marketing, sales, outside vendors, project team members). Testing, Troubleshooting, Prototyping
● Directs activities to create complex prototypes involving multiple technologies and diverse components.
● Creates test plans and determines validation tests to be implemented.
● Identifies root causes of failures and reviews test plans of junior personnel.
● Applies industry-standard techniques in prototyping, testing, and problem-solving (e.g., STL, Laser Sintering, FMEA, DAQ, RCA).
● Understands critical measurements that need to be taken before, during, and after the experiment.
● Identifies trade-offs between risk, investment, and timing.
● Provides recommendations for the level of testing based on risk versus opportunity.

Standards/Procedures Applications
● Proficient in using all applicable standards/procedures in daily activities.
● Authors new standards/procedures and directs activities to generate new standards or procedures.
● Recommends appropriate procedures and standards to junior personnel.
● Understands which standards apply for compliance to a market, geography, or application.
● Collaborates with patent attorneys to ensure proper documentation is developed, released, and supported for various technical elements of intellectual property. Communication
● Defines, prepares, and presents technical topics internally within the company.
● Prepares and presents technical presentations for client reviews or trade associations.
● Sought out internally to provide critique and guidance on the generation of technical documentation.

Engineering Tools
● Mastery of tools essential for core activities.
● Mentors others on their proper use.
● Actively pursues opportunities to automate design activities.
● Identifies new tools and introduces new technologies to the team for review.

Responsibilities:
● Provides technical leadership for an Industry Focus Team. Mentors, supervises, collaborates with, and sets priorities for a small group of engineers and technicians to successfully execute industry focus projects aligned with business unit objectives.
● Designs new products and processes by following the product development process. Leads activities to conceptualize, evaluate feasibility, design, and launch new and/or significantly improved products that are desired by customers, technically feasible, and viable business opportunities.
● Gains experience with end-user applications, pain points, and opportunities by visiting sites, installing products, root-causing productivity problems, and forming relationships with end-user technical personnel from the assigned industry.
● Collaborates closely and effectively with colleagues around the world both within the assigned industry and as needed for other industries.
● Provides technical support for existing products to improve product performance and cost by working with manufacturing personnel and external suppliers.
● Assists in the development and refinement of metrics and the development process to improve the delivery of new product designs.
● Leads efforts to research and determine the technical feasibility of new opportunities that may result in new customer solutions in the form of new products and/or services. Provides insights in the routine process of ranking and prioritizing new product development projects with HD Marketing & Engineering leadership.
● Directs rapid-prototyping activities for assigned product development projects while utilizing both internal and external resources as needed. Serves as technical lead within Sprint events, VRT samples, and other Front End Discovery phase activities.
● Defines and directs internal and external (field) testing activities to understand product requirements and validate and verify new designs.
● Participates in Continuous Improvement programs, WPO, and works on special projects as assigned.