Quality Systems and Manufacturing Excellence Lead

Job Description

Job Description

Quality Systems and Manufacturing Excellence Lead

Barbco, Inc. — East Canton, Ohio

Build what quality looks like at Barbco

It’s 8:07 a.m. in East Canton. You’ve just walked the floor, spotted a potential fit-up risk in welding, and paused the job to prevent a downstream rework. By 9:30, you’re with Engineering refining a practical inspection plan for a new equipment platform. After lunch, you’re reviewing supplier nonconformance trends with Purchasing and preparing clear, visual standards that the assembly team can use tomorrow. This is how you move quality upstream—every day.

About Barbco

Barbco, Inc. is a family-owned American manufacturer with decades of experience designing and building underground construction equipment for the trenchless industry. We’re growing, expanding product lines, upgrading manufacturing systems, and investing in our people to power the company’s next generation.

Your mandate

This is not an ISO certification-driven position. Your mission is to architect, implement, and continuously improve a practical, sustainable Barbco quality system that works on the floor, improves products, strengthens accountability, reduces rework, and serves customers better.

You will report to senior management and have the visibility and support to drive meaningful, company-wide impact.

What you will lead

• Design, deploy, and iterate Barbco’s internal quality management system focused on real-world use.
• Define inspection processes, quality gates, documentation, and standards across manufacturing with clear accountability.
• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions; lead continuous improvement initiatives.
• Own nonconforming material control, product holds, rework, corrective actions, and final disposition.
• Improve incoming, in-process, final inspection, and product-release processes; create measurable metrics and report trends.
• Investigate quality issues from customers, warranty, suppliers, and internal manufacturing; communicate findings and actions.
• Elevate supplier quality and incoming-material expectations in partnership with Purchasing.
• Support welding, fabrication, machining, assembly, hydraulic, electrical, and finished-equipment quality.
• Ensure drawings, specifications, work instructions, inspection criteria, and engineering changes are understood and followed.
• Build practical documentation employees can actually use; train and coach teams in problem solving.
• Champion a culture where quality belongs to everyone; exercise the authority to stop a process when warranted.
• Enable new-product introduction and Barbco’s expansion into new equipment and markets.

Where you’ll plug in

Work closely with Production, Engineering, Operations, Purchasing, Dealer Support, and senior management to identify problems early and prevent defects from moving downstream.

What makes you successful

• Hands-on manufacturing quality leadership experience with a track record of building or materially improving a quality system.
• Deep skill in root-cause analysis and corrective action.
• Ability to read and interpret drawings, specifications, tolerances, and inspection requirements.
• Knowledge of measurement, inspection, calibration, and shop-floor quality processes.
• Comfort collaborating directly with production employees, supervisors, engineers, suppliers, and customers.
• Strong organization and documentation habits; sound judgment to make tough quality calls.
• Change leadership that aligns quality and production as one team.
• Action-oriented, practical problem solver with a continuous improvement mindset.
• Experience with Lean, Six Sigma, 8D, FMEA, CAPA, APQP, and supplier quality is valuable—results matter more than acronyms.
• Four-year degree helpful but not required; significant manufacturing experience, technical education, quality credentials, and proven leadership all count.

Why Barbco

• Direct access to leadership; your work won’t disappear into a large corporate department.
• See results quickly in collaboration with engineers, craftsmen, dealers, and customers.
• We’re investing in new products and equipment platforms, manufacturing capabilities, technology and business systems, training and employee development, dealer and customer support, continuous improvement, and the next generation of Barbco.

At Barbco, quality is how we design it, build it, document it, improve it, and stand behind it. For the right person, this role offers significant opportunity to grow with the company and shape our quality future.

The person we’re looking for

You can walk onto the shop floor, understand what’s happening, ask the right questions, help solve the issue, and then put a system in place so we don’t solve the same problem twice. You’re firm without being adversarial, and you know production and quality are on the same team. Most of all, you want to build—not just maintain.

Market signal

Industry research underscores the importance of QMS ownership, CAPA/root-cause leadership, audit capability, technical drawing and fabrication literacy, and the ability to influence production.

Proficiencies

• Quality Inspection Experience
• Continuous Improvement
• 5 Why (Root Cause Analysis Method)
• Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP)
• Quality Control Experience
• Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)
• Precision Measurement & Inspection
• Blueprint Reading

Ready to raise the bar? Let’s talk.