Global Product and Program Launch Manager

La-Z-Boy•Dayton, TN

10d•Onsite

About The Position

This role is responsible for the Product and Program Launch introductions for various brands across North America, Europe, and Asia. Provides quality and processes related guidance to engineering, product design teams, and management with a focus on developing new and improving existing launch processes to reduce startup delays and exceed customer satisfaction. Champion all launch processes through strong leadership, providing direction, coaching, and training.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business or related field with 6 - 8 years of relevant experience or equivalent.
Supervisory/Leadership experience.
Highly competent in estimating, planning, tracking, and reporting project status, managing change requests, and project scope.
Ability to manage multiple projects and conflicting priorities under project deadlines.
Comfortable utilizing both internal and external resources to complete project assignments.
Proficient in Microsoft Office (Project, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Outlook).
English advanced proficiency.

Nice To Haves

Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is desired.
Certified Project Management Workshop Leader desired.
Certified Problem Solving & Decision Making Workshop leader desired.
Experience with APQP (Advance Product Quality Planning) or similar product development methodology is highly desired.
Experience launching products in a plant environment (Manufacturing), with focus on Quality, is desired.

Responsibilities

Responsible for managing the new product launch technicians with a focus on ensuring a smooth transition from design to implementation at manufacturing sites by ensuring adherence to Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) and LPDS stage gate deliverables are met, managing the readiness (scheduling, material, quality checks, documentation) for verification trips in various global manufacturing sites, developing a detailed timeline with all required activities, and ensuring team members across different functional areas are completing tasks on time
Represent the “voice of the customer” towards the internal organization and the “voice of the plant” towards the R&D partners involved in new product and program launch by identifying and resolving issues upfront that could challenge a successful launch or a quality customer experience through DFM, Safety reviews, FMEA, PFMEA, product reviews, and other risk avoidance tools.
Coordinate any training and documentation required for new product/program launch, manage the execution of safe launch protocols such as layered process and out-of-box quality audits on first production runs, and make sure all gaps are addressed by the responsible management team.
Drive resolution and timely mitigation of risks and raise to management serious issues that impact successful customer release.
Establish and manage a process for reviewing “lessons learned” for product launches, ensure effective countermeasures are implemented for future launches, provide continuous improvement to new product and program launch process to ensure a “flawless” launch.