Manufacturing Tooling Engineer

BLOX LLC•Bessemer, AL

2d•Onsite

About The Position

BLOX designs, manufactures, and constructs buildings and delivers them as products across the country. We fabricate the steel for uber modules, the structural frame the DMC system is built on, and we make the hardest parts of complex buildings on our own lines: headwalls, surgery ceilings, MEP racks, Central Energy Plants, exam rooms, bathrooms, and whole building modules. Twelve production lines, five programs, more than 800 teammates. We are the OEM and our own Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier at once: the part, the subassembly, and the module that ships all come off our lines, and your tooling has to hold at every level. Everything we build on those lines runs on tooling. Jigs, fixtures, assembly tables, weld fixtures, and the gauges that prove the part is right. When the tooling is good, the line runs to takt and quality is built in rather than inspected in. When it is not, everything downstream pays for it. This is a new position because tooling needs an owner. The job starts with design and ends on the floor. You work out how a part should be held and located, with manufacturing process engineering and product design still at the table, and you model the fixture that does it. You run the stack-up until the tolerances close, get it built in our own shop or at a vendor you manage, and stand at the line while the first parts come off it. When a fixture slows a line or a part comes out wrong, you are there that day. Some of that tooling serves lines already running; some is for lines that do not exist yet and must be proven before launch. You also inherit what is already on the floor: the drawings, the bills of material, the revision control, the asset records, and the calibration and repair schedules you keep with our Maintenance group. Our manufacturing has grown 2x in 24 months and looks to double again. The tooling backlog is real. If you want a queue someone else prioritizes for you, this is not the right seat. If you want to set the standard for how a company builds its tooling, it is. The work arrives as a brief, owned by the General Manager or the Chief Launch Engineer, who triages competing priorities. You do not own the product design, the line's production schedule, or Maintenance. You influence all three. You sharpen the brief into a problem statement and a proposed answer, present to our internal review, iterate, and build. Our CEO is a designer and builder and works directly with the launch team.

Requirements

Five or more years designing and building jigs, fixtures, or production tooling in a manufacturing environment.
Fluent with tooling design software (SolidWorks, Inventor, or similar).
Fluent with Revit for building models.
Working knowledge of GD&T and tolerance stack-up, applied to real parts.
Hands-on fabrication experience (Welding, metal fabrication, basic machining).
Comfort managing outside vendors on cost, lead time, and quality.
Ability to explain the design rationale for fixtures and rejected alternatives.
Ability to triage competing priorities and manage a tooling backlog.

Nice To Haves

Mechanical engineering degree.

Responsibilities

Design and build jigs, fixtures, and production tooling.
Model fixtures using tooling design software.
Run tolerance stack-ups to ensure parts meet specifications.
Manage the fabrication of tooling, either in-house or with external vendors.
Oversee the first parts coming off the line to ensure quality.
Troubleshoot and resolve issues with tooling that slows down production or results in incorrect parts.
Manage existing tooling, including drawings, bills of materials, revision control, asset records, and calibration/repair schedules.
Develop and prove tooling for new production lines before launch.
Manage budgets for internal tooling projects.
Collaborate with manufacturing process engineering and product design teams.
Present tooling designs for internal review and iterate based on feedback.