INTERIM QUALITY MANAGER – MECHANICAL, METAL AND ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS 

“Career development opportunity for ambitious customer focused quality manager to drive operational quality for a diverse range of in house manufactured and third party sourced products.”

Salary:  c£45000 (Pro Rata) + Excellent Benefits 

Location:  Wolverhampton, West Midlands 

Commutable from Birmingham, Kidderminster, Stafford, Stone, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, Edgbaston. Harborne, Stourbridge, Halesowen, Bromsgrove, Lichfield, Tamworth, Stoke on Trent, Telford, Shrewsbury, Droitwich, Redditch, Worcester, Coventry, Warwick, Sutton Coldfield, Coleshill, Stockport, Crewe

Our client is a well-established and respected manufacturer of fixtures, fittings and components both mechanical and electronic in the home and building infrastructure products sector. Customers include national, regional and local DIY chains, trade counters, hardware stores, other manufacturers etc as well as B2C internet sales. Highly acquisitive and experiencing excellent growth, the company is based in brand-new offices, distribution centre and test centre complex in the West Midlands but has operational facilities and subsidiaries nationally and globally.   

This is an interesting Interim (to Permanent) opportunity for a Quality Manager.  Reporting to the Manufacturing and Technical Director. You will drive and develop quality management capability, cultural quality behaviour and operational quality effectiveness. You will manage day to day operational quality activities focused on delivering effective resolution, preventative measures, and the exploitation of continuous improvement opportunities throughout our client’s head office, sales, manufacturing, next day logistics operations and all sourced product groups. The focus will be on resolving issues involving both products and service. You will drive and develop operational quality activities, ensuring the effective management of customer complaint investigation, preventative action implementation, effective handling of incoming and returned product inspection and quality management support to manufacturing operations.

The Role:

• Promote and maintain best practice for safety, health and environmental factors throughout all Quality operations, and facilitate the development of the safety culture within the quality management team.
• Establish, maintain and develop appropriate quality management systems and procedures, commensurate with the company’s objectives, ensuring continued accreditation to BS EN ISO 9001
• Provision of management system expertise and support for safety, environmental and resilience management systems.
• Implement appropriate analytical measures for the prevention of defects, process improvement and business quality performance.
• Lead the management of product and operational performance related customer complaints, from initial receipt acknowledgement, through containment and corrective action, to resolution, including on-site support, where appropriate, using 8D methodology.
• Remotely facilitating and coordinating 8D activities with overseas sourcing operations and supply chain.
• Effective management of operational quality activities, including appropriate AQL inspection of incoming products & materials, product returns handling, including investigation, trend analysis and appropriate final resolution with relevant external parties.
• Drive the quality management of manufacturing activities, embedding quality assured processes and the provision of appropriate quality surveillance within production operations.
• Provision of support to the sourcing team for evaluation and qualification of new suppliers, and continuous improvement activities with existing suppliers.
• Support Production Engineering in process development, equipment selection, and process flow activities within manufacturing operations.
• Coordinate quality management planning for new product introductions and product modifications.
• Provide coaching to develop quality awareness and cultural improvement
• Management of a small team of Quality Engineers.
• Effective management QMS auditing.
• Producing monthly reports, including KPI’s & Trend Analysis. 
• Creating Standard Operating Procedures for relevant activities. 
• Producing Product Quality Plans & associated documentation and corrective and preventative action reports.

The Ideal Applicant:

• Prefer trained QMS auditor with six sigma qualifications
• Minimum 3 years’ experience in a customer focused quality role, ideally within a manufacturing environment, serving retail, wholesale, trade or consumers.  
• Highly customer focused with excellent customer relations skills and ability to bring issues to a satisfactory conclusion.
• High level of proficiency with MSOffice applications (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
• Proficient with FMEA process 
• Familiar with a design culture and able to read CAD / technical drawings 
• Experience leading problem-solving processes and use of quality tools
• Excellent team working & verbal and written communication skills