Job Description

Quality Assurance Leader

Barbco, Inc. | East Canton, Ohio

Build the Next Generation of Quality at Barbco

Barbco, Inc. is a family-owned American manufacturer with decades of experience designing and building underground construction equipment used throughout the trenchless industry.

We are growing, investing in our people, expanding our product lines, improving our manufacturing systems, and preparing Barbco for its next generation of growth.

We are looking for a Quality Assurance Leader who wants more than maintaining somebody else's system. This individual will have the opportunity to help build, implement, and continuously improve Barbco's company-wide quality system alongside our leadership, engineering, production, and operations teams.

This is not an ISO certification-driven position. Our goal is to develop a practical, sustainable Barbco quality system that works on the shop floor, improves our products, strengthens accountability, reduces rework, and ultimately serves our customers better.

This position will report to senior management of Barbco and will have the visibility, support, and opportunity to make a meaningful impact across the company.

What You'll Do

You will help lead Barbco's continued evolution toward a stronger, more disciplined manufacturing quality culture, including:

• Develop, implement, and continuously improve Barbco's internal quality management system.
• Establish clear inspection processes, quality gates, documentation, standards, and accountability throughout manufacturing.
• Lead root-cause analysis, corrective and preventive actions, and continuous improvement efforts.
• Manage nonconforming material, product holds, rework, corrective actions, and final disposition processes.
• Partner closely with Production, Engineering, Operations, Purchasing, Dealer Support, and senior management.
• Help identify problems early and prevent defects from moving downstream.
• Improve incoming, in-process, final inspection, and product-release processes.
• Develop measurable quality metrics and communicate trends and opportunities to management.
• Lead quality investigations involving customer concerns, warranty issues, suppliers, and internal manufacturing.
• Help strengthen supplier quality and incoming-material expectations.
• Support welding, fabrication, machining, assembly, hydraulic, electrical, and finished-equipment quality.
• Ensure drawings, specifications, work instructions, inspection requirements, and engineering changes are understood and followed.
• Build practical documentation and processes that employees can actually use.
• Train and coach employees on quality expectations and problem-solving methods.
• Help create a culture where quality belongs to everyone, not just the Quality Department.
• Have the confidence and authority to raise concerns and stop a process when a significant quality issue exists.
• Support new-product introduction and Barbco's continued growth into new equipment and markets.

The underlying market research likewise emphasizes QMS ownership, CAPA/root-cause work, audit leadership, technical-drawing/fabrication literacy, and the ability to influence production as the key capabilities for this type of role.

What We're Looking For

We are looking for a hands-on manufacturing quality leader who can work equally well on the plant floor and with company leadership.

Strong candidates will bring a combination of:

• Manufacturing quality leadership experience.
• Experience developing or significantly improving a quality system.
• Strong root-cause analysis and corrective-action experience.
• Experience with fabrication, welding, machining, heavy equipment, industrial machinery, or engineered products preferred.
• Ability to read and understand engineering drawings, specifications, tolerances, and inspection requirements.
• Knowledge of measurement, inspection, calibration, and manufacturing quality processes.
• Experience working directly with production employees, supervisors, engineers, suppliers, and customers.
• Strong organization and documentation skills.
• Good judgment and the ability to make difficult quality decisions when necessary.
• Ability to lead change without creating a "quality versus production" environment.
• Practical problem-solving mentality with a strong bias toward action and continuous improvement.

Experience with formal quality systems, Lean, Six Sigma, 8D, FMEA, CAPA, supplier quality, or similar methodologies is valuable, but we are more interested in demonstrated results than certificates or acronyms.

A four-year degree can be beneficial but is not the only path to this position. Significant manufacturing experience, technical education, quality credentials, and a proven record of leadership will also be considered. The market analysis similarly indicates that demonstrated quality-system ownership and manufacturing results can be more important than degree title alone.

Why Barbco?

This is an opportunity to join a successful family-owned American manufacturing company at an important point in its growth.

At Barbco, you will not disappear into a large corporate quality department. You will have the opportunity to work directly with company leadership, engineering, production, experienced craftsmen, dealers, and customers—and see the results of the systems you help build.

We are investing in:

• New products and equipment platforms
• Manufacturing capabilities
• Technology and business systems
• Training and employee development
• Dealer and customer support
• Continuous improvement
• The next generation of Barbco

We want someone who sees quality as more than inspection. Quality is how we design it, build it, document it, improve it, and stand behind it.

For the right person, this role offers significant opportunity to grow with Barbco as the company grows and to help shape what quality looks like across the organization for years to come.

The Person We're Looking For

We want someone who can walk onto the shop floor, understand what is happening, ask the right questions, work with the team to solve the problem, and then put a system in place so we don't have to solve the same problem again.

Someone who can be firm without being adversarial.

Someone who understands that quality and production are on the same team.

And someone who wants the opportunity to help build something—not simply maintain it.

If you want to take ownership, make an impact, and help a strong family manufacturing company raise its game to the next level, we'd like to talk with you.

You should be proficient in:

• Quality Inspection Experience
• Continuous Improvement
• 5 Why (Root Cause Analysis Method)
• Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP)
• Quality Control Experience
• Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)
• Precision Measurement & Inspection
• Blueprint Reading