Senior Product Improvement Engineer

Senior Product Improvement Engineer

Euro-Pro, a pioneer in innovative cleaning solutions and small household appliances, seeks "top talent" professionals to join the teams in Newton, Massachusetts, Montreal, Quebec and China. We have achieved significant market share in the housewares industry with its functional, innovative products and has become one of the leading companies in the sector.

Recent Highlights
• Named to Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America in 2009, 2010 & 2011!
• Dramatic Sales Growth…
* Company revenues have increased by 266% from just over $270MM in fiscal 2007 to nearly $720MM in fiscal 2011!!!
• Euro-Pro is the “Fastest growing, most innovative developer of Home Appliances in the World!”
• Awarded Wal-Mart vendor of the Year for the past 3 consecutive years.
* Most recently in 2010, Euro-Pro was awarded the “Supplier of the Year” for Soft Goods (out of more than 2,000 suppliers!)
• 2011 Recognized and Received the Vendor of the Year & Partnership award from BJ’s
• In 2010, “Mark and Shark” infomercials had more airtime than Letterman, Oprah and Leno combined.
• For the second year in a row, Euro-Pro has been nominated for The People’s Choice Award for the “Favorite Infomercial of the Year!”
• Innovative & high Quality products…Euro-Pro, a Boston-based developer and marketer of innovative, high quality consumer products for the home and creator of the familiar Shark® and Ninja® brands.

Summary of Position
The Sr. Product Improvement Engineer is a key technical role responsible for cradle to grave product ownership. With strong focus on driving quality into R&D activities, VOC [voice of consumer] and KPI development, Product definition, overseeing validation testing, development and implementation of best practices, and continuous product improvement.
The role is responsible for ensuring 100 percent quality and regulatory compliance in accordance with documented procedures for all aspects of functional responsibility.
Product/industry knowledge is a plus and specific area expertise support is often given to other departments as needed. Major challenges of this position include support of the division quality function concurrent with business growth, best business practices, introduction of new products and processes, meeting division continuous improvement goals, and achieving customer satisfaction.

Essential Functions
• Participate and drive R&D activities to enhance product reliability and consumer experience. Invent, design and develop solutions to meet the company’s product development projects with key focus on consumer satisfaction.
• Establish product development standards and guidelines for best practices and lessons learned.
• Develop competitive benchmark databases for: construction, features, and performance. Driving improvements into new products and existing.
• Participate in design reviews, DFMEA, safety reviews, review of manufacturing, test documentation and drive product development improvements to ensure that customer quality requirements are met or exceeded.
• Design test fixtures and assist in development of test procedures for Engineering, Marketing, and 3rd party vendors.
• Guides product development teams in compliance to quality and regulatory requirements in all phases of the product development lifecycle.
• Develop consumer HUT [home use testing] criteria and drive development improvements.
• Provide pre-production and production launch support in the areas of: sub-supplier approval, production line qualification, and post production reliability and consumer testing.
• The individual must be able to drive continuous improvement of product quality, through reduction and prevention of non-conformances while defining and implementing metrics to evaluate the impact of continuous improvement initiatives on overall product quality.
• Participate in customer / supplier visits, surveys, and audits.
• Determine manufacturability of products and insure manufacturing processes and equipment have sufficient capability to meet customer quality requirements by analyzing capability studies, control charts, and other statistical data.
• Develop and implement formalized reporting of product quality from pre-production to obsolescence.
• Provide oversight of; product testing, agency certification, consumer testing, returns analysis, and legal monitoring.
• Develop and implement product packaging standards, with focus on Consumer Out-of-Box Experience, cost, and PATT testing.
• Manage and prepare quality documentation for the release to manufacturing.
• A strong knowledge of plastics and/or sheet-metal manufacturing, packaging, contract Far-East manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, or white goods will be helpful in this position.
• Performs a broad variety of tasks in support of product and process design as assigned by the departmental director.

Attributes and Skills
• Demonstrated collaboration, negotiation & conflict resolution skills, ability to lead, acknowledge, develop, communicate & implement a strategy to ensure compliance.
• Excellent oral communication & report, business correspondence & procedure-writing skills.
• Change agent with energy, passion, and enthusiasm to drive change.
• Exceptional analytical, problem solving, and root-cause analysis skills.
• Ability to multi-task and handle tasks with competing priorities effectively.
• External Focus: Understanding customer needs, marketplace dynamics, industry trends, and the competitive landscape in the industry/function & considering the external impact of business activities & decisions on the external environment.
• Clear thinker: Simplifying strategy into specific actions with clear accountability, making decisions with speed & accuracy based on best available information & communicating priorities clearly & concisely.
• If you are a self motivated individual with strong communication skills, are motivated by the challenges of growing business in a fast paced industry, and are extremely effective in driving corrective and preventive actions, then this highly diverse job is for you.
• If you are a hand’s on team player; with an opportunity to learn and share knowledge between a very dedicated team is desired.

Education and Experience
• BSME, BSEE, or technical discipline with 5-10 years experience.
• Demonstrated understanding of product development lifecycles, design change and document change control, product and process verification and validation methodologies, and manufacturing / production process control methodologies.
• Demonstrated expertise to effectively communicate within all levels of the organization around design verification and validation activities; production &process controls; Corrective & Preventive Action (CAPA), consumer complaints, and product improvement activities.
• Proficiency in the areas of statistical principles and applications, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, DOE, Acceptance and Sampling, process improvement/optimization, Gage R&R measuring systems, product reliability and safety, system and product audit, product quality tools such as; six sigma, Lean, and DFR.
• Minimum 2-5 years Quality Assurance, Quality Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or Design Engineering experience.

At Euro-Pro, we are driven to be the best in the industry. We are looking for individuals who want to make a difference. We celebrate and reward initiative, creativity, growth, and commitment to our mission. We will provide the challenge and opportunity to apply all aspects of your experience and skills; you provide the energy, passion, and results.

Euro-Pro supports the national policy of Equal Employment Opportunity.

It is our goal at Euro-Pro to recruit applicants for jobs without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, sex, sexual orientation, handicap, marital status or veteran status.