Quality Engineer

Smiths Group•Cookeville, TN

10d•Onsite

About The Position

The Quality Engineer is responsible for product and process quality throughout the product life cycle, emphasizing quality planning, manufacturing readiness, defect prevention, and customer satisfaction. The role leads cross-functional quality planning, develops and maintains quality documents, analyzes process and product performance, and drives corrective and preventive actions. It also serves as a key quality contact for assigned OEM customers, ensuring clear communication, timely responses, and alignment with customer-specific requirements. The position supports new product launches, product transfers, design and process changes, supplier changes, customer quality requests, and ongoing manufacturing quality. It works with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Sales, Operations, suppliers, and OEM customers to define controls, investigate issues, confirm compliance, and improve performance. The work environment includes office, quality laboratory, and manufacturing settings, with travel to customer, supplier, and company locations as business needs require.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Engineering Technology, Quality, or a related technical field preferred; equivalent relevant education and manufacturing quality experience may be considered.
Experience in a manufacturing quality engineering role, preferably supporting OEM customers in HVAC, appliance, industrial, or related markets.
Working knowledge of quality planning and core quality tools, including process flow diagrams, PFMEA, control plans, PPAP, FAI, SPC, MSA, capability studies, and structured root cause analysis.
Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications, tolerances, test requirements, and customer quality documentation.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, project-management, and organizational skills, including the ability to manage multiple customer and launch priorities.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical information clearly and professionally with OEM customers and cross-functional teams.
Proficiency in data analysis, report preparation, and Microsoft Office applications.
Ability to exercise sound judgment, maintain accurate records, protect confidential customer information, and appropriately escalate risk.
Ability and willingness to travel by automobile or airplane to customer, supplier, and company locations as business needs require.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of ISO 9001:2015 quality management system requirements and audit support.
Experience with advanced product quality planning or equivalent structured quality planning methods.
Experience with OEM customer portals, customer-specific requirements, and formal corrective action formats such as 8D.
Knowledge of lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, mistake-proofing, risk-based thinking, and continuous improvement methods.
Quality and regulatory support experience related to RoHS, REACH SVHC, CMRT, EMRT, California Proposition 65, TSCA, PFAS, and other customer compliance requests.

Responsibilities

Lead quality planning for new products, product transfers, design changes, process changes, and supplier changes from concept through production release.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify risks and define appropriate product and process controls before release.
Develop, review, and maintain process flow diagrams, PFMEAs, control plans, inspection plans, test plans, and other quality planning records.
Define critical-to-quality characteristics, acceptance criteria, sampling requirements, measurement methods, validation needs, and documentation requirements.
Coordinate PPAP, FAI, and other customer approval submissions, including dimensional results, capability studies, material certifications, test data, and supporting records.
Assess quality impacts of engineering change requests and process changes, ensuring verification, validation, training, and customer approval are completed before implementation.
Facilitate production readiness reviews and verify that quality requirements, inspection methods, gauges, work instructions, and control documents are in place before launch.
Serve as the primary quality interface for assigned OEM customers and maintain professional, responsive working relationships with customer quality and engineering contacts.
Review and interpret customer drawings, specifications, quality manuals, portals, and customer-specific requirements, and communicate applicable requirements internally.
Coordinate timely responses to customer requests, including PPAPs, FAIs, RMAs, corrective action requests, deviations, source inspections, audits, and regulatory or restricted-substance inquiries.
Lead or support customer complaint investigations, containment, root cause analysis, corrective actions, and effectiveness verification.
Prepare and present technical updates, quality data, investigation findings, and action plans during customer meetings and reviews.
Coordinate customer visits, audits, and quality reviews, and ensure commitments and action items are completed by agreed due dates.
Escalate significant customer, product, or compliance risks to Quality Leadership and affected functions.
Monitor and analyze production, inspection, test, scrap, rework, warranty, and customer complaint data to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.
Lead structured problem-solving and root cause investigations, and implement sustainable corrective and preventive actions.
Perform or coordinate product inspections, dimensional verification, reliability testing, and laboratory testing to confirm compliance.
Apply statistical methods, SPC, process capability analysis, measurement system analysis, and other quality tools to evaluate performance and reduce variation.
Partner with Manufacturing and Engineering to resolve production issues, prevent recurrence, improve first-pass yield, and reduce cost of poor quality.
Maintain accurate quality records, reports, approvals, and objective evidence in accordance with document-control and retention requirements.
Support supplier qualification, PPAP review, incoming quality planning, and supplier corrective actions.
Participate in supplier, internal, and customer audits and support closure of resulting actions.
Provide training and technical guidance to manufacturing and quality personnel on control plans, inspection requirements, quality standards, and newly released processes.
Support continuous improvement and promote prevention, accountability, and customer focus.
Perform other duties as assigned by Quality Leadership.