Quality Manager

Position Purpose:
Provide Quality Department leadership and representation for a SQF certified site, ensuring all products meet both internal and external customer requirements and specifications prior to shipment. Promotes a customer satisfaction-based food safety culture through strict adherence to established quality standards, food safety regulations and non-wavering commitment to the company's quality policy and continuous improvement culture.

Collects, tracks, analysis, drives and reports all plant quality metrics, extracting data from existing systems and creating new metrics with the Director of Quality. Communicates plant metrics to all employee groups both internal and as needed external. Serves as a trainer, mentor and leader to both new and established employees, leading by example with a calm data driven decision making ability.

Investigates and processes complaints, process variance and nonconformance through root cause analysis, targeted corrective actions and kaizen continuous improvement events. Has ownership and responsibility for all nonconforming inventory levels, disposition and aging. Manages site quality staff including reviews, scheduling, selection, discipline and promotion.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Follow and promote the company's safety-first culture through proper execution and monitoring of safety procedures including the use of all safety equipment, personal protective gear and safety glasses (where applicable). Stops and reports ALL unsafe activities immediately.
• Manage the quality portion of employee training including onboarding, annual refresher training, safety monthly training (Quality employees) and any other required workforce training.
• Supervise, staff of Quality Technicians to continuously inspect and audit the processes and products in order to ensure compliance with quality standards, regulations and certifications. Archives results and retains per the companies QMS requirements.
• Perform all employee reviews, coaching and disciplinary actions required by the companies HR policies. Mentor and coach employees through poor performance or new challenges. Help to communicate recommended employee training to the DOQ.
• Verify testing results and measurements against established standards and release passing finished goods for shipment while quarantining questionable or untested material.
• Verify all daily required production paperwork is turned in and completed before archiving. In the case of electronic records set up a review schedule to ensure compliance.

• Work with the engineering and new products team to launch new products on the production floor, ensure samples are collect and first run standards are established.
• Initiate, drive and complete timely root cause analysis and corrective actions for all customer complaints, internal process anomalies, internal reject, excessive scrap or rework to reduce Customer complaints, control cost of production, maintain the integrity of process and foster continuous improvement in the plant.
• Responsible maintaining the sights registry of all internally generated quality issues (NCM's/ICARS/Complaints/SCARS) in order to reduce reoccurrence and monitor emerging trends.
• Actively participate in company meetings, zoom calls, on site visits, kaizen activities and new initiatives within the plant and as needed externally.

• Responsible for ensuring all gauges are calibrated per the schedule and for controlling all gauges
• Other duties as assigned

Critical KPI's:

• Maintain Customer Complaints, Cost of Quality and Defect Rates below target levels for the site.
• Maintain employee's attendance and performance at acceptable levels intervening as needed.
• Maintain HOLD inventory levels below targets including hold inventory aging.
• Maintain acceptable performance on Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Action execution.
• Continuous improvement of training and employee knowledge

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education: High School graduate or equivalent. (College degree preferred)

Required knowledge:

• Solid understanding of Quality Assurance principles. (ISO-9001:2015 experience preferred but not required)
• Experience in SQF, BRC or other food/lab safety certification
• Solid math skills
• Solid written and oral communication skills

Experience/Soft skills Required:

• Must be self-motivated and able to complete tasks with little assistance choosing to do things the right way even when it takes longer or there is pressure to take shortcuts.
• Must be a positive, steady and mentoring leader/coach who can help other stay on track even on stressful days.
• Extremely organized
• Must thrive in a team environment using a "Group think" approach to solving problems.
• Must enjoy training and interacting with people at all levels of the organization

• Must be able to understand quality standards and perform visual and dimensional quality inspections

• 3+ years in a Quality role preferred with a history of growth and promotion

Skills/Abilities

• Strong excel skills at the complex formula, advance charting, pivot table level.
• MINI-TAB and/or SQC Pack experience a big plus
• 5-Why or Fishbone Root Cause Analysis experience
• Group training experience a big plus
• Strong written and oral communication skills required
• Must have good interpersonal skills