Quality Manager

Department: Quality Assurance / Quality Control
Reports To: General Manager
Location: Manufacturing Facility
Employment Type: Full-Time, Exempt

Direct Reports: Quality Engineers, Quality Inspectors/Technicians, and other Quality personnel as assigned

Position Summary

The Quality Manager is responsible for leading and continuously improving the facility's Quality Management System (QMS) and overall quality performance. This position ensures that products, manufacturing processes, suppliers, and quality systems consistently meet customer specifications, engineering requirements, applicable regulatory requirements, industry standards, and company quality objectives.

The Quality Manager provides leadership for quality assurance, quality control, customer and supplier quality, root-cause analysis, corrective and preventive action (CAPA), auditing, inspection, measurement systems, and continuous improvement.

This position is expected to build a strong quality-at-the-source culture, emphasizing defect prevention, process discipline, accountability, and continuous improvement rather than reliance on final inspection.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Quality Management System (QMS)

• Develop, implement, maintain, and continuously improve the facility's Quality Management System.
• Ensure compliance with applicable ISO standards, customer-specific requirements, internal procedures, and regulatory requirements.
• Establish and maintain quality policies, procedures, work instructions, inspection standards, Control Plans, and related documentation.
• Establish annual and departmental quality objectives and monitor performance against established targets.
• Ensure effective document and record control for quality-related information.
• Lead quality management reviews and communicate quality-system performance to senior management.
• Identify quality-related operational risks and implement appropriate mitigation and preventive actions.
• Maintain audit and customer-readiness throughout the year.

Manufacturing Quality Assurance and Control

• Provide leadership and oversight for incoming, in-process, and final inspection activities.
• Establish appropriate inspection methods, sampling plans, acceptance criteria, inspection frequencies, and control methods.
• Ensure Critical-to-Quality (CTQ) characteristics are identified, monitored, and controlled throughout manufacturing.
• Ensure required inspections and process checks are completed at the specified frequency and properly documented.
• Monitor manufacturing processes for compliance with approved procedures, specifications, drawings, Control Plans, and work instructions.
• Monitor process capability, variation, First Pass Yield (FPY), rejection rates, scrap, and rework.
• Ensure nonconforming materials and products are immediately identified, contained, segregated, documented, and dispositioned through established processes.
• Establish layered quality controls and verification processes where required to prevent defective products from reaching customers.
• Promote defect prevention and quality-at-the-source principles throughout manufacturing operations.

Customer Quality

• Serve as the primary facility contact for customer quality concerns, complaints, corrective actions, and quality-performance reviews.
• Lead containment activities following customer complaints or identified quality escapes.
• Lead preparation and submission of customer corrective-action responses, including 8D reports, Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and CAPA.
• Ensure customer complaints and corrective actions are completed within required timelines.
• Verify the effectiveness and sustainability of implemented corrective actions.
• Monitor customer PPM, complaints, returns, rejection trends, warranty concerns, and other customer quality metrics.
• Participate in customer meetings, audits, corrective-action reviews, and quality-performance discussions.
• Ensure customer-specific quality requirements are understood, documented, communicated, and implemented throughout the organization.
• Escalate significant customer quality risks to senior management promptly.

Root Cause Analysis and Corrective/Preventive Action

• Lead investigations of internal defects, customer complaints, supplier defects, process failures, and quality escapes.
• Utilize structured problem-solving methodologies, including:
  • 8D
  • 5 Whys
  • Fishbone/Ishikawa Analysis
  • Pareto Analysis
  • Fault Tree Analysis
  • PDCA
  • FMEA
• Ensure investigations identify verified root causes rather than addressing symptoms alone.
• Establish corrective and preventive actions with clearly assigned owners, responsibilities, and completion dates.
• Track CAPA activities through completion and verify effectiveness.
• Identify recurring quality issues and implement systemic corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
• Use lessons learned from quality incidents to strengthen processes, PFMEAs, Control Plans, work instructions, and training.

Supplier Quality

• Establish and maintain supplier quality expectations, requirements, and performance standards.
• Monitor supplier performance using PPM, rejection rates, incoming inspection results, corrective actions, and other appropriate metrics.
• Issue and manage Supplier Corrective Action Requests (SCARs) when required.
• Conduct or coordinate supplier audits, process assessments, and supplier-development activities.
• Support qualification and approval of new suppliers and manufacturing processes.
• Partner with Purchasing, Engineering, Operations, and suppliers to resolve material and component quality issues.
• Ensure incoming materials and components conform to drawings, specifications, and purchase requirements.

Process Quality and Continuous Improvement

• Identify and lead initiatives to reduce defects, scrap, rework, variation, and Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ).
• Lead cross-functional quality and continuous-improvement projects.
• Apply statistical methods and Statistical Process Control (SPC) to critical manufacturing processes where appropriate.
• Monitor process capability using appropriate measures such as Cp and Cpk.
• Lead development and improvement of PFMEAs, Control Plans, inspection standards, SOPs, and process controls.
• Promote Poka-Yoke/mistake-proofing and other defect-prevention methods.
• Partner with Operations, Manufacturing Engineering, Maintenance, and other departments to improve process capability and product quality.
• Ensure lessons learned and corrective actions are standardized across applicable products and processes.

Audit and Compliance Management

• Develop and execute the facility's internal quality audit program.
• Coordinate customer, certification, regulatory, and third-party audits.
• Ensure audit findings and nonconformities are documented, assigned, investigated, and closed within established timelines.
• Verify effectiveness of corrective actions resulting from audit findings.
• Track recurring audit findings and ensure systemic corrective actions are implemented.
• Maintain documentation and processes in a state of audit readiness.

Calibration and Measurement Systems

• Establish and maintain an effective calibration and measurement-control program.
• Ensure inspection, measuring, and test equipment is properly identified, calibrated, maintained, and controlled.
• Maintain calibration schedules, certificates, and associated records.
• Ensure equipment is calibrated within required intervals and removed from service when calibration requirements are not met.
• Lead or coordinate Measurement System Analysis (MSA) and Gauge R&R studies.
• Evaluate risks associated with out-of-calibration equipment and determine the potential impact on previously inspected products.
• Ensure measurement methods and equipment are appropriate for specified tolerances and inspection requirements.

Quality Metrics and Reporting

• Establish and maintain facility quality dashboards and reporting systems.
• Monitor and report key quality metrics, including customer PPM, supplier PPM, FPY, scrap, rework, COPQ, CAPA closure, and audit performance.
• Analyze quality trends and identify emerging risks and recurring issues.
• Present quality performance, major concerns, corrective actions, and improvement priorities to senior management.
• Ensure quality records and supporting data are accurate, complete, traceable, and maintained in accordance with company requirements.

Leadership Responsibilities

• Provide leadership, coaching, direction, and performance management for Quality personnel.
• Establish clear responsibilities and expectations for Quality Engineers, Inspectors, Technicians, and other assigned personnel.
• Ensure Quality personnel are properly trained and qualified for assigned inspection and quality-system responsibilities.
• Develop technical capabilities within the Quality organization.
• Promote accountability for product and process quality across all departments and shifts.
• Partner effectively with Operations, Engineering, Maintenance, Supply Chain, Purchasing, Shipping/Receiving, and other functions.
• Foster a culture in which quality is treated as an organizational responsibility rather than solely the responsibility of the Quality department.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Quality Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 8-12 years of progressive quality experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated experience leading quality systems and quality-control activities in a manufacturing operation.
• Experience with customer complaints, corrective actions, supplier quality, manufacturing quality, and audit management.
• Strong working knowledge of:
• 8D
• 5 Whys
• Root Cause Analysis
• Fishbone/Ishikawa
• PFMEA
• Control Plans
• SPC
• MSA/Gauge R&R
• CAPA
• Pareto Analysis
• Process Capability (Cp/Cpk)
• Poka-Yoke
• Experience with ISO-based Quality Management Systems.
• Strong analytical, organizational, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with customers, suppliers, production employees, technical personnel, and senior leadership.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and quality/data-analysis tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a high-volume or fabricated-metal manufacturing environment, including processes such as stamping, laser cutting, welding, machining, assembly, coating/galvanizing, or similar manufacturing operations.
• Experience with ISO 9001 or comparable certified quality-management systems.
• ASQ Certified Quality Manager (CMQ/OE), Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), Six Sigma Green Belt/Black Belt, or similar certification preferred.
• Experience conducting supplier and customer audits.
• Experience working directly with major OEM or industrial customers.
• Experience implementing or improving a manufacturing QMS.