Senior Engineering Manager NPD/DTV

Dover Food Retail•Chester, VA

4h•Onsite

About The Position

Dover Food Retail (DFR) is seeking an experienced leader to manage the technical planning, development, and project execution of new products (NPD) and design-to-value (DTV) initiatives. This role involves leading the technical scoping of new products, translating customer needs into technical requirements, concept development, ensuring product performance, and overseeing design release for refrigerated food display cases, glass doors, and frames. The position requires close collaboration with Sales, Product Management, Sourcing, Quality, and Manufacturing to ensure smooth project launches and meet financial targets. The Senior Engineering Manager will be responsible for creating long-term strategies and project plans for NPD of commercial refrigerator food display and walk-in products, as well as cost reduction for existing products (DTV). This includes supporting the NPD/DTV roadmap, evaluating project costs, benefits, and resources, and ensuring compliance with NPD Stage Gate engineering requirements such as concept development, prototyping, design verification plans (including DFMEA and modeling), product testing, thermal simulation, design reviews, CAD models, drawings, BOMs, and agency compliance (UL, NSF, DOE, NOM, CSA, DLC, IEC). The role also involves leading the DTV process by brainstorming productivity projects, ensuring team objectives for savings timing, rate, and volume are met, and reporting project status against the Annual Operating Plan (AOP). Collaboration with the Dover India Innovation Center (DIIC), Sourcing, Inside Sales, Engineering, Field Technicians, Manufacturing Engineering, and Production is essential. The manager will introduce policies for business improvement, develop the team to achieve NPD/DTV goals, and ensure the transition and development of CAD (Solidworks), PLM, PDM, and BOM (Enovia) systems within the engineering team and its interfaces with manufacturing. This includes making detailed plans, directing technical activities, reviewing technical accuracy, approving design changes, assessing manufacturing process capability, and driving transformation activities like lean product development and continuous improvement, ensuring robust product design principles are applied.

Requirements

Minimum of a bachelor’s degree (or its educational equivalent) in an engineering discipline.
10+ years relevant engineering experience of commercial or industrial products in design of HVAC, refrigeration, dehumidifier, or similar thermodynamic systems.
Minimum 5 years of managing an engineering team/Engineering Leadership/Project Management that delivers high levels of engineering support to a demanding and ever-changing product-driven business.
5+ years’ experience in leadership role in a manufacturing environment managing a team of engineers and designers.
Leadership history leading engineering project teams with international team members.
Engineering systems transformation – CAD, PLM, PDM.
Excellent project management oversight skills – Detects project management issues, evaluate alternatives, redirect, and develop team project management skills.
Strong financial acumen.
Ability to identify and resolve team issues; teaches collaboration and coordination.
In-depth competency in Mechanical or Thermal domain, good knowledge in Refrigeration systems with Refrigerated display case experience preferred.
Proven track record of delivering NPDs, sub-system development or medium to large VAVE projects from concept to launch.
In-depth experience in executing projects through stage-gate processes, PLM systems.
Excellent written, verbal, and communication skills and ability to exert personal influence to gain stakeholder support in a cross-functional environment.
Action oriented, ethical in value, and have a strong customer focus.
Ability to manage competing priorities in fast-paced and rapidly changing environment.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in engineering or business management preferred.
MBA or Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering or related engineering discipline.
Design for Value training or Certification (Value methodology Associate).
8+ years of engineering experience in refrigeration, air conditioning, dehumidifier, sealed-system, airflow thermal management, or similar, design theory and application.
Supermarket refrigeration system & Commercial display products overall understanding and component knowledge.
Familiarity with tools and techniques necessary to meet industry standards for good refrigeration testing and analysis.
Experience with Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma.

Responsibilities

Creating the long-term strategy and delivering project planning for new product development (NPD) of commercial refrigerator food display and walk-in products.
Leading cost reduction of existing products (DTV) activities.
Supporting Product Management in the development of the NPD/DTV roadmap.
Evaluating cost, benefits, and resources to support NPD/DTV projects.
Ensuring support and compliance with NPD Stage Gate engineering requirements (Concepts and IP, Mockup, Prototype and pilot builds, Design verification plan (DVP&R) including DFMEA and modeling, Product testing, Thermal simulation, Design technical reviews, Engineering CAD models, drawings, and bill of materials, Agency compliance UL, NSF, DOE, NOM, CSA, DLC, IEC, COGS, Handoffs and Training).
Providing local leadership of the DTV process, including brainstorming DTV productivity projects and ensuring team meets key project objectives of savings timing, rate, and volume.
Planning and monthly reporting of related projects vs the Annual Operating Plan (AOP).
Collaborating with leaders of Dover India Innovation Center (DIIC), Sourcing, Inside Sales, Engineering, Field Technicians, Manufacturing Engineering and Production on projects.
Introducing policies and initiatives that contribute to the overall improvement of the business.
Developing the team to accomplish NPD/DTV goals and objectives.
Ensuring the continued transition and development of CAD (Solidworks) and Product Life Cycle-PLM, Product Data Management-PDM and Bills of Material-BOM (Enovia) within the entire engineering team and its interfaces with manufacturing.
Making detailed plans to accomplish goals and directing the integration of technical activities.
Checking technical accuracy of work through Technical Designs review.
Approving design changes and/or specifications to deliver robust product design.
Conducting manufacturing process capability assessment to review and define critical design parameters.
Driving transformation activities cross-regionally including lean product development, culture and continuous improvement.
Ensuring that robust product design principles are used during project development (design of experiments, components of variation, reliability testing, OpEx tools application).