Director – Quality Assurance
Lennox International
Stuttgart, AR
2 rounds of Interview
Onsite Role
InPerson Interview (2nd round)
The Director of Quality Assurance is a critical member of the Stuttgart leadership team and is responsible for the long-term quality strategy for the Commercial business. A 750,000 square foot facility with over 1,750 employees, the Stuttgart factory is the foundation of the Lennox North America Commercial Unitary HVAC business. The selected candidate will develop, execute and maintain processes and systems to ensure all products engineered and manufactured within the Commercial division meet customer specifications and achieve superior quality and reliability levels. The Director of Quality Assurance will enjoy significant interface with all functional areas within the Commercial division, with specific emphasis in Engineering and Operations. The selected quality leader will have responsibility for developing a system for measuring quality complete with specific metrics designed to surface what’s working, what’s not working, determination of root cause, and to allow the necessary corrective action to occur with speed and accuracy. The Director of Quality Assurance will drive processes that not only define and detect quality issues for improvement, but also partner with the manufacturing team to identify and support improvements in the manufacturing processes and products. The design and implementation of a “Quality Management System” (QMS) is a key to success.
Responsibilities
- Creates and maintains a comprehensive Quality strategy; educates and articulates this strategy tirelessly throughout the group.
- Champions the business’ goal of providing superior quality in products, processes while providing tools and metrics throughout the organization.
- Develop and lead comprehensive implementation plans for achieving quality objectives.
- Establish quantitative quality objectives based on customer/market requirements. Develop consensus with management to integrate these objectives into their business annual plans.
- Define systems for measurement, feedback, and utilization of quality data that supports improvement programs.
- Identify, validate, and lead manufacturing process improvements that improve product quality and improve process yields.
- Establish, implement, and maintain a closed-loop quality issues resolution process that ensures that all identified quality issues are prioritized, assigned ownership and resolved in an expeditious manner.
- Will have direct leadership responsibility for quality department, including Quality Managers and Quality Engineers.
- Define and lead the deployment of training programs needed to support quality initiatives. Be actively involved with the initial deployment of best practices that exist and are new to the business.
- Drive change management and employee involvement to support continuous improvement in quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
- Provide liaison with customers in resolving quality issues. Seeks frank customer feedback and works to surface issues via ongoing personal contact and customer visits.
- Build an effective quality team committed to organizational goals; foster collaboration among team members, functional leadership and the senior leadership in the Commercial division.
Standard Work Areas & Processes
- Close partner with General Plant Manager and the plant leadership team
- Key contributor to creating and executing the factory business plan
- Proven Lean Strategic Planning and execution, with at least 6-10 years of Staff level leadership experience
- Manages the hiring, direction, assessment and development of the Quality team members
- Able to motivate and lead teams to achieve goals
- Champion the Commercial culture, driving an environment of accountability, open communication, and high ethical standards
- Drive process and efficiency improvement across all functions
- Support Lean “Change Management” leadership to be proactive in anticipating, assessing, and addressing the needs of the factory
- Must have proven success in a Lean environment, Quality deployment strategies and driving continuous improvement strategies within the Quality organization and manufacturing operation
- Support the Vision and Mission statement of the Commercial business segment
- Exceptional written, verbal, and interpersonal skills that result in effective communications
- Exceptional presentation skills to senior executives
- Certification in Lean and Six Sigma Black Belt preferred
- Experience utilizing a wide array of Lean Six Sigma tools and processes.
Professional
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or Finance, with an advanced degree preferred.
- Significant Lean/Sigma experience and knowledge of Lean analytics
- Self-motivated, resourceful and entrepreneurial; demonstrating willingness for learning and improvement
- Well-developed quantitative and qualitative analytical skills and critical thinking skills
- Strong influencing and communication skills; capable of securing management buy-in, sponsorship and investment through strong articulation of business benefits aligned to broader organizational objectives
- Skilled with the use of Microsoft and other business software applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, SAP, etc.
- Exceptional written, verbal, and interpersonal skills that result in effective communications.
- Exceptional presentation skills to senior executives.
- Lean and Six Sigma preferred.
- Able to motivate and lead teams to achieve goals.
- The successful candidate will be comfortable working on the factory floor and will be expected to have a strong factory presence.
- The ideal candidate will have a background encompassing Design Quality, Quality Control, Compliance Test Development, Customer Quality, Manufacturing Quality, and Supplier Quality.
