Industrial Cost Engineer
About The Position
The Industrial Engineering Cost Leader is responsible for owning, maintaining, and driving Total Cost of Manufacturing (TCM) accuracy of product cost through Bills of Material (BOMs), routings, and manufacturing assumptions across the aftermarket automotive portfolio. This role partners cross-functionally with Engineering, Supply Chain, Purchasing, Finance, and Manufacturing to ensure product costs are accurate, transparent, and aligned with operational reality. This role plays a critical part in cost control, margin improvement, and decision support for new product introductions (NPI), product changes, sourcing decisions, and continuous improvement initiatives.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field
- 3–7 years of experience in industrial engineering, cost engineering, or manufacturing cost analysis
- Strong working knowledge of BOM structures, routings, and standard costing
- Experience in a manufacturing environment (automotive or aftermarket preferred)
- Proficiency with ERP systems (Oracle, SAP, JD Edwards, Epicor, etc.)
- Advanced Excel skills; ability to analyze and present complex cost data
- Ability and willingness to travel (up to 30-50% of time), including overnight travel.
Nice To Haves
- Experience in aftermarket automotive manufacturing
- Familiarity with lean manufacturing principles
- Exposure to NPI processes and cross-functional product development
- Experience working with multi-site manufacturing operations
Responsibilities
- Serve as the primary owner of BOM/Router cost integrity for assigned product lines
- Ensure BOMs, routings, labor standards, and overhead assumptions accurately reflect current manufacturing processes
- Validate BOM / Router updates across Engineering, Purchasing, and Manufacturing
- Analyze material, labor, and overhead costs to identify cost drivers and improvement opportunities
- Support variance analysis between standard and actual costs and drive corrective actions
- Partner with Finance to support annual standard cost updates and margin analysis
- Support make/buy, sourcing, and supplier change decisions with data-driven cost analysis
- Partner with Product Development and Engineering to establish accurate initial BOMs and cost estimates
- Ensure manufacturability and cost targets are considered early in the design process
- Track cost changes throughout development and into production launch
- Work closely with Manufacturing Engineering and Operations to validate labor standards and process assumptions
- Partner with Purchasing to reflect supplier pricing, tooling amortization, and MOQ impacts
- Support Sales, Product Management, and Finance with cost data for pricing, quoting, and margin decisions
- Identify opportunities to simplify BOM structures and improve data governance
- Support cost reduction initiatives through value engineering and process optimization
- Help establish best practices for BOM / Router accuracy, cost change management, and documentation
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
