Quality Senior Specialist Process Improvement

Baker Hughes•US-TX-10575 Red Bluff Road, TX

About The Position

The FCSS Cost of Quality Improvement Leader is accountable for reducing the Cost of Poor Quality across FCSS businesses, sites, and functions. This execution-led role focuses primarily on improvement delivery at the point of impact: preventing systemic issues, resolving significant customer escapes, and producing measurable business impact rather than preparing routine reports. The role establishes clear ownership, measurement, and governance across prevention, appraisal, internal failure, and external failure costs, with an emphasis on preventing defects and customer impact. It uses Cost of Quality data, risk signals, lessons learned, and Management of Change to identify risks early and strengthen design, supplier, process, and service controls. When failures or customer escapes occur, the role leads or facilitates containment, customer protection, root-cause analysis, corrective action, cross-business learning, and verified sustainment. The role defines the FCSS Cost of Quality strategy and multi-year improvement roadmap; maintains a prioritized portfolio of preventive opportunities and realized Cost of Poor Quality; and works with Quality, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Services, and Finance to assign ownership and deliver improvements. It converts insights from established dashboards into focused improvement actions, tracks control effectiveness and financial results, and builds leadership capability to use Cost of Quality information. As the FCSS expert and escalation point for structured problem solving, the role applies methods such as 3C, 5 Why, A3, 8D, and DMAIC, alongside preventive tools including FMEA and control plans. It embeds lessons learned and strengthens Management of Change across product, process, supplier, system, and organizational changes. The position requires valid work authorization in the country of employment; the employer cannot sponsor work authorization for this role.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Quality, Operations, Business, or a related technical field, or equivalent relevant experience.
Minimum 5 years’ experience in Quality, Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, or related leadership roles.
Demonstrated experience analyzing and reducing Cost of Poor Quality across prevention, appraisal, internal failure, and external failure categories.
Proven record leading complex, cross-functional problem solving for customer escapes and systemic quality issues, with verified corrective action, financial benefit, and improved customer outcomes.
Strong knowledge of quality cost models, structured problem solving, corrective and preventive action, lessons learned, and Management of Change.
Experience leading in a matrixed, multi-business environment and influencing without direct authority.
Strong financial, analytical, facilitation, coaching, and stakeholder-management skills.
Clear executive and frontline communication skills, with the ability to translate quality and cost data into decisions, ownership, and action.
Valid work authorization in the country of employment; the employer is unable to sponsor work authorization.

Nice To Haves

Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or higher.
Experience delivering large-scale transformation, harmonization, or cross-business improvement programs.
Experience in multi-site or global operations.

Responsibilities

Define and deploy the FCSS Cost of Quality strategy and multi-year prevention and reduction roadmap aligned with business priorities, risk, and operating plans.
Establish common Cost of Quality definitions, data standards, ownership, and governance across prevention, appraisal, internal failure, and external failure costs.
Provide transparency into Cost of Quality baselines, trends, emerging risks, systemic failure modes, and business impact.
Lead an operating rhythm that reviews leading indicators, risk exposure, prevention actions, control effectiveness, and realized failure costs.
Partner with Quality, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Services, and Finance to assign accountable owners and address risks before they become defects or escapes.
Direct prevention and appraisal investment toward controls with evidence of reducing failure cost and customer risk.
Maintain a prioritized portfolio combining preventive opportunities and realized Cost of Poor Quality, ranked by risk, financial exposure, customer impact, recurrence, and delivery feasibility.
Identify high-risk products, processes, suppliers, and changes using risk assessments, weak signals, audit findings, process capability, and historical lessons.
Strengthen preventive controls, including design and process reviews, FMEA, control plans, supplier assurance, error proofing, capability improvement, and verification at critical control points.
Target major internal and external failure costs and ensure actions address the conditions that allowed failures to occur and escape.
Ensure initiatives have evidence-based risk or problem statements, baselines, targets, accountable owners, and robust preventive or corrective controls.
Track improvement delivery, control effectiveness, and sustainment; evidence avoided-cost assumptions and realized savings through agreed Finance governance.
Use the Cost of Quality dashboards and reporting framework developed and maintained by the Industrial Products Cost Leader without duplicating routine data preparation or reporting.
Translate dashboard insights into prioritized strategic improvements with owners, actions, milestones, and expected business outcomes.
Spend the majority of role capacity leading problem solving, working with teams at the point of impact, implementing controls, and removing delivery barriers.
Use trend, recurrence, capability, and risk analysis to identify systemic priorities and direct resources before losses materialize.
Partner with the Industrial Products Cost Leader when data gaps or targeted analysis require attention while retaining accountability for measurable improvement.
Keep governance concise and decision-focused, using existing operating reviews and QBRs to confirm priorities, remove barriers, secure ownership, and evidence results.
Build leadership capability to interpret Cost of Quality insights and take action without creating additional reporting layers.
Act as the FCSS expert and escalation point for structured problem solving, leading, facilitating, or assuring responses to significant customer escapes and systemic quality issues.
Ensure immediate customer protection and effective containment, with clear ownership, governance, communication, and escalation through verified closure.
Deploy a common, risk-based problem-solving framework and select suitable methods, including 3C, 5 Why, A3, 8D, and DMAIC, supported by preventive tools such as FMEA and control plans.
Coach and challenge cross-functional teams to define problems from evidence, verify occurrence and escape root causes, implement systemic countermeasures, and conduct independent effectiveness checks.
Coach teams to identify and mitigate failure modes during design, industrialization, supplier selection, process change, and service planning.
Establish a disciplined lessons-learned process that captures learning from defects, customer escapes, near misses, and successful prevention and applies it across relevant areas.
Embed lessons learned in new product, process, supplier, and change activity through updated standards, risk assessments, design reviews, control plans, training, and verification.
Strengthen Management of Change so product, process, supplier, system, and organizational changes are assessed, approved with defined controls, implemented, verified, and monitored through stabilization.
Review recurrence, repeat escapes, near misses, and control effectiveness to confirm preventive and corrective controls remain effective and sustained.

Benefits

Contemporary work-life balance policies and wellbeing activities.
Comprehensive private medical care options.
Life insurance and disability programs.
Tailored financial programs.
Education assistance.
Generous parental leave.
Mental health resources.
Dependent care support.
Additional elected or voluntary benefits.
Company-sponsored health and welfare programs.
Thrift Plan (401k).
Additional forms of compensation such as bonuses, subject to applicable plans or policies.