Quality Engineer Associate

McCormick & Company•Hunt Valley, MD

About The Position

You may know McCormick as a leader in herbs, spices, seasonings, and condiments – and we’re only getting started. At McCormick, we’re always looking for new people to bring their unique flavor to our team. McCormick employees – all 14,000 of us across the world – are what makes this company a great place to work. We are looking to hire a QUALITY ENGINEER ASSOCIATE immediately in Hunt Valley, Maryland. What We Bring To The Table: The best people deserve the best rewards. In addition to the benefits you’d expect from a global leader (401k, health insurance, paid time off, etc.) we also offer: Competitive compensation Career growth opportunities Flexibility and Support for Diverse Life Stages and Choices Wellbeing programs including Position Overview Under the direction of the Quality Engineer II, the Associate Quality Engineer is responsible for the overall development and maintenance of documentation that captures best operating practices in some of the operations departments within the plant. The key objective of this role is to reduce variation in operating methods, thereby improving the reliability and repeatability of processes and eliminating defects.

Requirements

BSc in Technical - Quality/Research/Product Development
1-2 years of Manufacturing Quality Experience required
Project Management Experience preferred
Leading a cross-functional team required
Must be able to professionally relate to key vendors, HQ, and Operations to help grow partnerships, gain agreement on performance expectations and influencing change.
Must have the ability to learn technical equipment/process and its capabilities.
Must be able to relate work tasks to the 7 major plant KPIs (safety, people, quality, performance, service, cost, and innovation).
Must be able to execute Design of Experiments. (DOE)

Nice To Haves

Certification and/or Licenses: HACCP, GFSI (SQF, BRC, etc.), Lean Six Sigma (Green or Black Belt)
SAP experience preferred
TPM Experience preferred (within a food or pharmaceutical industry preferably)
Interpersonal Skills - leadership, interactions, communication, influence: Influence & Positive Impact – Will be coached and mentored by the Quality Engineer II at persuading, motivating, and energizing others at all levels. Passionate, personable, self-confident, and likeable. Able to flex style and direct, collaborate, or empower as the situation requires. Ability to establish a personal power base built on mutual trust, fairness, and honesty. Establish and maintain productive relationships and networks to facilitate business transactions
Other Skills and HPO Competencies: Ability to learn and apply statistical and focus improvement tools for process improvements (SPC, Capability studies, FMEA, DOE, etc.)
Excellent organizational skills to be able to handle multiple projects and activities to ensure on time completion
Excellent verbal and written skills. Medium to excellent Microsoft suite skills.
Ability to work independently and have flexible work hour
Adaptability – open to and actively solicit new ideas and opinions
Dimension Ability to recognise problems, analyse, analyze and develop solutions using a logical thought process. Low to Medium level of complex, ambiguous problems - some of which are time-sensitive and multidisciplinary.
Must have the ability to lead / direct large cross-functional teams that includes corporate and plant functions through improvements using Focus Improvement and Total Production Maintenance (TPM) tools.
Limited interaction with Customers and minimal (if any) interaction with suppliers.
Making decisions based on facts, sound logic, and training is critical for the daily management of the areas of responsibility.
Will have input to annual strategic QA Leadership plan for plant as well as responsible for delivering key department and plant level metrics based on individual contributions and work.
Incumbent may impact, either positively or negatively the business unit through quality errors that are not detected or avoided. The negative impact could be significant for the McCormick reputation as well as significant costs associated with quality errors in the form of sub-quality product that needs to destroyed. This could be in the $100,000 or greater.
Engage with teams across McCormick

Responsibilities

Lead the management, disposition and system improvements for Out of Specification, defective Materials (Raw, WIP, and Finished goods), and complaints using TPM process (e.g., FMEA, QC Matrix, SPC, 5 Why, 12 Step, DMAIC, Risk Assessments, etc.)
Quality Technical Lead for start-up of process, equipment design and formulas
Drive manufacturing process capability improvements through variation reduction, error-proofing, and implementation of statistics. This includes collecting and analysing data to identify and prioritise opportunities for improvement of product and process quality
Implement quality best practices and McCormick Quality Standards
Conduct Internal Audits and participate in external audits
Develop capabilities of Operation, Warehouse and QA Teams in relation to understanding and implementation of quality standards and best practices
Daily Maintenance of Quality Programs (e.g., Infinity, Print Systems, checkweighers, operational procedure review/update, Inspection Plans)