Senior Manufacturing Engineer

The Senior Manufacturing Engineer will establish and lead the manufacturing engineering discipline at SPOC Energy. This role reports to the Director of Manufacturing and focuses on translating product-engineering requirements into safe, repeatable, efficient, and measurable manufacturing processes for complex hybrid energy and power systems products.

The role will develop manufacturing work standards, methods, routings, work-center structures, labor standards, build documentation, tooling, and production disciplines required to improve current operations and support SPOC's continued growth. The Senior Manufacturing Engineer will also serve as a key operational leader in SPOC's transition to modern ERP and manufacturing execution systems, ensuring that system design accurately reflects how products are built, staged, tested, completed, and reported on the shop floor.

This position works closely with Production, Product Engineering, Quality, Materials, Procurement, Continuous Improvement, and business-system implementation teams.

Key Responsibilities:

Manufacturing Process Development

• Develop, document, and maintain manufacturing methods, product routings, operation sequences, standard work, assembly instructions, and visual work instructions.
• Translate engineering BOMs and product designs into practical manufacturing build structures and production processes.
• Evaluate assembly methods, material presentation, workstation design, tooling, fixtures, and equipment requirements.
• Ensure manufacturing documentation accurately reflects how products are physically assembled, inspected, tested, consumed, and completed.
• Establish appropriate governance and revision control for manufacturing methods and shop-floor documentation.

Production Systems and Capacity

• Define work centers, labor content, cycle times, capacity assumptions, staffing requirements, and production constraints.
• Conduct takt-time, cycle-time, line-balance, throughput, and bottleneck analyses.
• Improve workflow, workstation layout, material movement, point-of-use storage, WIP control, and line-side replenishment.
• Support production planning by providing accurate routing times, labor standards, capacity models, and process constraints.
• Identify and implement opportunities to improve safety, quality, productivity, flow, and manufacturing cost.

ERP and Manufacturing-System Readiness

• Own the manufacturing requirements for ERP, MES, and related shop-floor systems.
• Develop and validate manufacturing routings, work centers, operation steps, labor standards, manufacturing BOM levels, material-consumption methods, and production-completion logic.
• Help define how production orders move through release, kitting, staging, assembly, inspection, testing, completion, and system closeout.
• Partner with Materials and Production to align kitting, staging, inventory movement, scanning, material consumption, backflush rules, WIP reporting, and production-order completion.
• Audit routing accuracy, labor reporting, BOM consumption, operation adherence, and production variances.
• Partner with Finance and Costing to improve product-cost accuracy, labor and overhead assumptions, variance analysis, margin visibility, and capacity planning.

New Product and Engineering Change Readiness

• Lead manufacturing-readiness activities for new products, major product revisions, and pilot builds.
• Create manufacturing launch packages that include validated BOMs, routings, work instructions, inspection points, tooling requirements, labor estimates, and training needs.
• Coordinate readiness reviews with Engineering, Production, Quality, Materials, Procurement, Logistics, and Continuous Improvement.
• Capture lessons learned from pilot and initial production builds and convert them into controlled process improvements.
• Serve as the manufacturing owner for engineering-change implementation, including routings, work instructions, tooling, WIP disposition, revision cutover, rework, and employee training.
• Ensure engineering changes are clearly communicated and executable before release to production.

Production Support and Continuous Improvement

• Provide structured technical support for production interruptions, routing errors, material-presentation problems, tooling gaps, quality defects, rework, and process bottlenecks.
• Lead problem-solving activities from immediate containment through root cause, corrective action, and permanent process revision.
• Apply Lean manufacturing methods including standard work, value-stream mapping, line balancing, 5S, visual management, kaizen, waste reduction, and root-cause analysis.
• Partner with Quality to strengthen in-process quality controls, workmanship standards, inspection points, first-pass yield, and defect prevention.
• Train supervisors, production employees, and support teams on new or revised manufacturing processes.
• Spend substantial time on the production floor observing processes, engaging employees, validating standards, and implementing improvements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Five or more years of manufacturing engineering, industrial engineering, process engineering, or production-systems experience.
• Demonstrated experience developing manufacturing routings, standard work, work instructions, labor standards, line balancing, tooling, fixtures, and production-readiness plans.
• Experience supporting complex electrical, electro-mechanical, industrial automation, power-electronics, engineered-to-order, configure-to-order, or assembly-based manufacturing.
• Working knowledge of ERP or MES manufacturing processes, including production orders, routings, work centers, labor reporting, material consumption, WIP, and order completion.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional projects and implement sustainable improvements without direct reporting authority.
• Strong analytical, technical problem-solving, project-management, and written communication skills.
• Practical knowledge of Lean manufacturing, root-cause analysis, and continuous-improvement methods.
• Ability and willingness to work directly with production employees in an active manufacturing environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience implementing or significantly upgrading an ERP, MES, WMS, or digital shop-floor system.
• Experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, MV2, or comparable manufacturing systems.
• Experience with Autodesk Fusion, Autodesk PLM, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Electrical, SolidWorks, or comparable CAD and PLM platforms.
• Experience designing tooling, fixtures, workstations, or manufacturing layouts.
• Familiarity with electrical-control panels, variable-frequency drives, industrial enclosures, power systems, or related products.
• Knowledge of ISO-based quality systems and applicable manufacturing safety requirements.
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Certified Manufacturing Engineer, or similar professional certification.

Success in This Role

• Accurate and maintainable manufacturing routings, work centers, labor standards, and production documentation.
• Improved production flow, capacity visibility, throughput, first-pass yield, and schedule reliability.
• Reduced cycle time, rework, production interruptions, and manufacturing variance.
• Successful translation of product designs and engineering changes into production-ready processes.
• Effective adoption of ERP, MES, and digital shop-floor processes.
• Manufacturing standards that are understood, followed, measured, and continuously improved.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION / EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

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