Elkhart - Lead Design Engineer

The Lead Design Engineer is responsible for direction and leadership of the assigned, on-site design team, ensuring project management, design accuracy, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness that meets or exceeds customer expectations. The Lead must ensure the team interprets customer needs, translates them into design requirements, and achieves those requirements by designing innovative products and tools to manufacture them. Additionally, the Lead directs life cycle support of the products and tooling.

Essential Accountabilities

1. Promote a safe work environment that is clean and organized by establishing and enforcing the organization's safety policies for work activities.
2. Ensure adherence to company standards and certifications including ISO, SQF and GMP via established processes, documented work instructions, and recordkeeping.
3. Develop a competent staff that maximizes the team's contribution to organization by:

Hiring and training to job functions

Assigning work, appraising results and providing regular performance feedback

Recognizing employees for exceptional performance

Coaching, disciplining and exiting employees for poor performance

Establishing individual development goals that align to strategic initiatives and department objectives

Communicating company objectives, priorities, performance and memos

4. Utilize computer aided design (CAD) software to create complex product and tool geometries.
5. Oversee account management activities including facilitation of communication to deliver on time, quality, cost-effective solutions.
6. Foster innovative work environment focused on customer needs by:

Assigning and prioritizing projects and work orders

Facilitating ideation, prototyping and product launch through iterative customer collaboration

Engaging with cross-functional teams and peer design groups to develop technical solutions

Coordinating sample creation and approval process

7. Deliver robust tool solutions by:

Collaborating with tooling leadership on project priorities to meet customer timeline and cost deliverables

Directing assigned design team on scheduling and prioritization of workloads

Procuring tools externally and managing vendor performance

Supporting developments through tool modification, specification creation, and part approval

8. Drive continuous improvement of customer experience by using data to develop improvement opportunities from established performance and design standards.
9. Review and initiate engineering change orders to ensure an accurate system representation of the product.
10. Support product lifecycle by:

Guiding operations and process engineering on application of specifications and approving deviations

Identifying and approving material substitutions

Supporting corrective and preventative actions

Guiding tooling and operations on tool repair and maintenance

Recordkeeping of design files

11. Collaborate with cross-functional teams by providing customer needs/product applications perspective and technical expertise in product and tool design for all areas of the organization to maximize performance, quality, cost and delivery.
12. Demonstrate proficiency of thermoforming and manufacturing processes by relating knowledge of plastic processing and characteristics to customer requirements.
13. Maintain professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops, reviewing professional publications, establishing personal networks, benchmarking state-of-the-art practices and equipment and participating in professional societies.
14. Communicate openly and practice a no-surprise approach with Management Team.
15. Lead and execute special projects and other duties as assigned by Manager.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering or other related field with 5 years design (product or tooling) experience or Associate degree with 7 years design (product or tooling) experience in the plastics industry with project management and supervisory leadership experience.

Proficient in the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems in both 2D and 3D.

Desired Skills

• Microsoft Office Suite
• Thermoform plastics manufacturing experience
• Knowledge of quality systems and controlled documentation systems
• Strong organizational skills
• Self-directed with ability to work without close direction

Position Requirements

Work Environment Conditions:

Inside: Office, Manufacturing, Tool Vault.

Equipment/Tools Used:

Computer, fax, phone, copier, measurement tools, 2D and 3D Modeling CAD, MS Office, Oracle, Trello

Physical Requirements: Light work (lift 10 lbs): consistently (samples, cases of parts)

Medium Work (lift 11-30 lbs.): frequently (cases of parts, tooling) Heavy Work (lift 31-50 lbs.) occasionally (tooling) Mental Requirements Reading, writing, calculating

Interpersonal skills

Reasoning / Analysis

Works with minimal supervision

Ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously

This position is in office - not remote.

Travel Frequency (in addition to seminars or related training):

Minimal (10%) – travel to customers/vendors/conferences/other Placon locations

This job description reflects the current assignment of essential accountabilities and is not meant to be all-inclusive. Duties and responsibilities may be assigned or reassigned to this job at any time and may be modified to reasonably accommodate an individual with a disability or for other reasons.

Placon employment offers are contingent upon the successful completion of a pre-employment drug test, basic physical, background check, educational verification, and reference checks (as applicable).

Placon requires that employees have and maintain authorization to work in the country in which the role is based. In general, Placon does not sponsor candidates for non-immigrant visas or permanent residency unless based on business need.

Placon is committed to equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or expression, marital status, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or other protected characteristics.