Job Description

Quality Manager

Location: South Gate, California

Employment Type: Contract

Industry: Aerospace Testing and Manufacturing

Position Summary

A leading aerospace testing and manufacturing organization is seeking an experienced Quality Manager to lead and manage its Quality function. This individual will ensure compliance with Nadcap AC7101 Quality Management System and ISO/IEC 17025 standards.

The Quality Manager will partner with Operations, Engineering, Customer Service, and Supply Chain leadership to fully integrate the Quality Management System into the organization’s value streams. This role will serve as the primary quality leader for risk identification, problem resolution, corrective action, and loss reporting while ensuring that all products and processes meet internal, customer, and regulatory requirements.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage the Quality function’s budget, costs, and expenditures while leading productivity and continuous-improvement initiatives.
• Partner with functional managers to design, implement, and document procedures and methodologies for process control, improvement, and compliance across internal production, material testing, and external supply-chain processes.
• Drive quality-improvement initiatives by identifying root causes and implementing effective corrective and preventive actions.
• Establish appropriate measurements and metrics to monitor the effectiveness of the Quality Management System and support sound product-quality decisions.
• Define and deliver employee training on root-cause analysis, problem-solving tools, corrective actions, and process improvements.
• Establish systems for collecting and analyzing statistical data to identify trends and improve product quality.
• Analyze customer product specifications to establish efficient, cost-effective manufacturing and material-testing requirements.
• Develop quality-planning methods for all testing value streams.
• Develop process-certification standards and support certification activities to maintain Nadcap AC7101 and ISO/IEC 17025 compliance.
• Review customer purchase orders, contracts, and change requests to ensure that all necessary quality and testing requirements are incorporated.
• Collaborate with customers to identify quality-improvement opportunities and provide feedback to manufacturing and testing personnel.
• Coordinate internal and external quality audits.
• Review supplier purchase orders and establish supplier-quality requirements.
• Monitor supplier performance and develop evaluation criteria and rating systems for critical vendors.
• Interface with customer and supplier quality representatives to resolve quality-control issues and ensure that effective corrective actions are implemented.
• Validate quality processes by establishing product and testing specifications, defining quality attributes, measuring production performance, documenting evidence, and determining operational and performance qualifications.
• Write, maintain, and update quality-assurance procedures.
• Maintain and improve product quality through product, company, system, compliance, and surveillance audits.
• Investigate customer complaints and collaborate with management to develop new manufacturing processes, testing methods, and training procedures.
• Direct daily Quality department functions, including Inspection, Quality Engineering, Material Review Board, Certification, and Process Control activities.
• Develop and maintain procedures to ensure equipment and technician compliance with Nadcap AC7101 and ISO/IEC 17025 requirements.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field.
• At least five years of quality-management experience.
• Experience managing and maintaining Nadcap-certified processes.
• Experience designing and implementing quality systems.
• Broad working knowledge of root-cause analysis, problem-solving methodologies, statistical principles, and statistical process control.
• Strong knowledge of inspection and quality-control methods, techniques, and documentation.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively at all organizational levels.
• Strong computer skills, including quality-control applications, word-processing software, spreadsheets, and databases.

Preferred Qualifications

• Destructive-testing experience.
• ASQ certification.
• Master’s degree in a related field.
• Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing experience.