Senior Manager Supplier Engineering

Job Description

Supplier Engineering Mission and Organization structure at Intuitive:

Supplier Engineering’s mission is to ensure supply continuity for purchased parts at the lowest landed cost.

Suppler Engineering (SE) comprises 3 functions.

• Supply Chain Engineering: Partner closely with Global Supply Chain (GSC) Organization. Build supplier process excellence and global tooling to grow spending with preferred suppliers to > 80%, and to reduce cost
• New Product Introduction SE: Partner closely with New Product Launch team. Take a new product from Phase 1 exit to Final Manufacturing Review (FMR) exit by ensuring component manufacturability, scalability, cost, and quality.
• Plant SE: Partners closely with Plant operations organization. Ensures smooth and efficient scaling of the business for our sustaining products and supports the transfer of new products into those facilities.

Primary Function of the Position:

The successful candidate will develop and lead a team of supplier engineers, to build companywide technical expertise and business acumen in the plastics category (including its sub-categories) space. The focus of this team is to establish and manage a portfolio of global suppliers for the plastics category that can scale with Intuitive and deliver products, parts and services at lowest landed cost.

You will be responsible for 20+ suppliers and $250M+ annual spend within the Category.

Key Objectives of this role are: To achieve

• Best-in-class performance from your suppliers, through management of core supplier KPIs of Capacity, On-time Delivery, Cost reduction, Risk Mitigation, Product Quality and Service levels.
• High level of productivity for the team through improvement of business processes and systems.
• Professional development of the team.

Essential Job Duties:

Lead a team of supplier engineers who deliver value to the business through the following activities.

• Supply-chain Strategy: Collaborate with Global Supply Chain team to develop and execute category strategies and supplier roadmaps to enable scalable, sustainable and resilient supply-chain to support Intuitive’s Product strategy and roadmap.
• Supplier Selection: Conduct market research to identify trends in the field of plastics manufacturing and determine where new supplier additions are required. Evaluate and select suppliers that enable agility and innovation during new product introduction as well as commercial scalability. Establish a strong partnership with the Strategic Sourcing team to incorporate commercial viability in supplier selection process.
• Supplier Development and Collaboration: Drive adoption of new technologies and automation in the supply-base to achieve high efficiency and production scale. Champion best practices, such as DFx, Lean, SPC, six-sigma, project management, with Intuitive’s suppliers. Establish clear communication channels with suppliers and lead both technical and business relationships
• Supplier Performance and Monitoring: Work closely with suppliers to select optimal manufacturing process and process controls to achieve high quality and cost performance. Develop effective KPIs to monitor supplier performance (delivery, capacity, cost, quality). Execute projects towards continuous improvements of KPIs.
• Supplier Compliance: Partner with the Supplier Quality organization to drive audit finding resolution with suppliers through processes like CAPA and SCARs to maintain compliance with QMS requirements
• Supplier Risk Management: Partner with Global supply-chain organization to identify various risks within the supply-chain and implement mitigation measures.

• Supplier Change Management: For commercially launched products, execute Intuitive’s change management processes like major/moderate change (MCF), Supplier Change Request (SCR) and Change Order (CO) to support projects enabling capacity scaling, cost reduction, product quality improvement and supply-chain risk mitigation.
• Stakeholder Influence: Align/Negotiate project ownership and hand-off points with various peer Supplier Engineering groups (New Product Introduction, Mfg Plant support, Tooling development). Influencing decisions with key partners in Global Operations (Planning, Sourcing, Procurement), Engineering (Design, Process, Quality) and Project Management organizations.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Experience:

• Proven ability to lead teams to solve complex technical and process problems.
• Proven ability to hire highly capable staff and grow and mentor staff.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presentations to executives.
• Demonstrated project management skills and ability to influence and negotiate with stakeholders.
• Domain knowledge expertise in the plastic category. Demonstrable knowledge of a wide range of manufacturing processes and measurement techniques. Deep understanding of key input variables for quality, cost, schedule and capacity.
• Outstanding analytical skills along with good judgment.
• Proficiency in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing techniques; certification preferred.
• Knowledge of document management systems and ERP Systems, preferably Agile and SAP.
• Knowledge of 21 CFR part 820 and ISO 13485 preferred.
• Experience in a high-volume medical device company is a plus.
• Ability to travel to suppliers on an as-needed basis – domestic and international (25%).

Required Education and Training:

• BS degree in engineering, advanced degree preferred
• 8+ years related experience in Manufacturing, Operations, Supplier Quality, Supplier Development, or related field with significant medical or medical device experience preferred
• 3+ years of experience leading supplier engineering, supplier quality or supplier development teams, or leadership of equivalent areas.