Project Manager

Product Development Manager

Under limited guidance, organizes, tracks and champions the design and development of assigned products.

Using advanced knowledge of the products, project management and best practice, manages multiple complex, higher risk projects to ensure that new products are completed to established specification, scheduling and cost requirements.

Key Responsibilities

Serves as a resource to less experienced program managers to provide guidance on best practice, problem resolution and acts as a mentor as needed.

Reviews project plans and proposals, and works with management to develop project objectives. Identifies project responsibilities by determining the phases and elements of the project.

Determines project schedule and timelines by studying the project plan and specifications, calculating time requirements and sequencing project elements.

Partners with marketing to determine requirements for a new product or product platform.

Collaborates with engineering management to allocate technical resources for a project. Identifies and manages outside technical resources that may be required to complete a project.

Controls and monitors project plans, reviews any design, specifications, plan and schedule changes and recommends actions to improve project outcomes. Monitors product costs and capital spending. Proposes and pursues solutions if either goes over budget.

Advocates for the design team, identifies and clears potential roadblocks.

Identifies manufacturing/operations and purchasing issues that require resolution to successfully complete a project and drive the decision process.

Identifies technology and design issues that require resolution to successfully complete a project and drive the decision process.

Facilitates activities within the company in support of completing project milestones. Tracks project milestones and deliverables, and effectively maintains project documentation.

Communicates with project stakeholders on an ongoing basis. Prepares project status reports by collecting, analyzing and summarizing information and trends and recommends actions as needed to improve outcomes.

Establishes design qualification, field testing, and production testing plans and success criteria.

Coordinates with production/operations to successfully transfer a new product to production.

Conducts training classes for customer service personnel for new products.

Evaluates overall success of projects and drives process improvements to the overall process.

Performs other duties as assigned.

Education and Experience Required

Education: Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, electrical engineering or equivalent.

Experience: Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of experience in engineering successfully managing engineering projects, objectives, costs, timelines and resources.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Advanced technical knowledge and design experience relating to the core competency technologies used in similar product lines (as defined by business unit).

Advanced project management skills and experience to successfully lead complex cross functional teams and high risk projects.

Skills and ability to effectively give direction and guidance, and work well within the cooperative culture of the organization.

Ability to take ownership of a project and be able to organize and manage it while motivating technical professionals to produce quality designs on schedule. Ability to conform to shifting priorities, requirements and timelines.

Proactive management and expert level problem troubleshooting techniques.

Effective written and verbal communication skills to effectively develop project documents and work with cross functional teams throughout the organization. Able to articulate a complete product development process from ideation to production.