Engineer, Manufacturing (Cast Skin/Slush Molding)

Summit Polymers•Portage, MI

25d•Onsite

About The Position

The Cast Skin Engineer develops, optimizes, and supports slush molding of plastic parts for automotive interior trim, instrument panels, full center consoles, and kinetic parts. The engineer works closely with product design, manufacturing, quality, and suppliers to ensure cast skin molding processes and materials meet customer specifications, cost targets, and automotive quality standards.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a similar technical discipline OR 5 years of experience in a technical position in a cast skin/slush molding environment
Knowledge of PVC, TPO, or other thermoplastic materials.
Understanding of mold design, heat transfer, and polymer processing.
Familiarity with automotive quality standards such as IATF 16949.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office software suite – Excel, Word, PowerPoint
Effective verbal and written communication skills
Independent thinking with strong analytical and problem-solving skills
Flexible and able to manage multiple priorities and projects simultaneously
Agreement to complete all post-hire required training
A minimum score of 50 on the Wonderlic Select Assessment (Traditional Score of 26 on the cognitive portion).

Nice To Haves

Experience with automotive interior manufacturing preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead the development and implementation of cast skin/slush molding tool and processes for new products
Participate in part design input and design output reviews.
Focus on design optimization to produce highest quality parts via robust cast skin/slush molding tooling conditions and slush mold processability considerations.
Participate in cast skin/slush molding tool design reviews.
Participate in cast skin/slush molding trials at sample facilities.
Support corrective action plans for new cast skin/slush molds.
Troubleshoot molding defects including thin spots, bubbles, wrinkles, burns, color variation, and incomplete fill.
Develop Operator Instruction Sheets and support development of Quality Inspection Standards to ensure production personnel can work safely while meeting quality and productivity requirements.
Coordinate entry of all molds into preventative maintenance system and develop preventative maintenance instructions.
Collaborate with Lean Manufacturing Engineer to develop internal mold store packaging that supports efficient labor and automation while ensuring safe & defect-free storage, transport and handling at subsequent operations based on SPI packaging standards and best practices.
Perform mold-specific setup and operational training for mold technicians, supervisors, utilities/operators, and managers, and oversee mold change, startups, and production until safety and proficiency are achieved.
Collaborate with project engineering to coordinate engineering changes to molds.
Support and continually improve all production cast skin/slush molding operations
Support the production team performance – improving safety, quality and efficiency.
Utilize practical problem solving (PPS) and kaizen.
Troubleshoot tooling, process, and equipment related problems through collaboration with tooling and maintenance teams.
Collaborate with maintenance to assess cast skin/slush molding machine capability.
Develop justifications for various process improvement projects.
Conduct layered process audits to ensure compliance with process setup/verification, standardized work, and quality systems requirements.
Achieve assigned corporate-wide performance objectives for the molding manufacturing operations, including safety, quality, productivity (cycle times), operational availability (machine up time), and delivery metrics.
Lead development of annual performance targets for slush molding metrics. These include labor cost per hour, mold change times, internal scrap percentage, and others.
Collaborate with plant management to standardize and improve cast skin/slush molding operations. Cast skin/slush molding focus includes safety, cast skin/slush molding machines, cast skin/slush molding machine work-cell layouts, cast skin/slush molding utilities and infrastructure, material handling equipment, operator and utility work, cast skin/slush mold technician training system, etc.
Lead the development, documentation, control, and sharing of cast skin/slush molding standards with participation from plant champions and manufacturing coordination team members.
Assist plants with developing and executing plans to implement standards.
Audit plants to standards compliance
Provide extra assistance to plants who are not meeting targets.