Senior Supplier Quality Engineer

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Partner with Vehicle Interiors Engineering, Design, and Strategic Sourcing to select suppliers based on manufacturing capability, capacity, and quality maturity.
• Collaborate with suppliers on design reviews to ensure seats and interior trim parts are manufacturable, and explore new production techniques and materials where needed.
• Lead the supplier industrialization process from design through production ramp-up, including soft tooling to hard tooling transitions.
• Support suppliers with tooling, foam molds, sew fixtures, gauges, and process qualifications; witness and approve tooling and process buy-offs on site.
• Drive the APQP process and support PPAP through start of production, including dimensional, material, appearance, and performance validation.
• Own craftsmanship and appearance quality for occupant-facing surfaces — grain, gloss, color and material matching, gap and flush, seam quality, stitch integrity, and trim fit — and establish master and boundary sample…
• Ensure supplier compliance with seating safety and interior material requirements, including occupant safety performance, flammability, and durability testing.
• Assess supplier readiness for vehicle builds and help manage production risk ahead of each build phase.

Job requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Industrial, Materials, or a related engineering field.
• 8+ years of experience in quality, supplier quality, or manufacturing — ideally in automotive.
• Direct experience with seating and/or interior trim commodities and their supply base.
• Hands-on experience launching new products (NPI) and creating or improving quality systems.
• Experience with manufacturing processes such as injection molding, foam-in-place and molded foam, cut-and-sew, lamination and wrapping, stamping and welding, and electromechanical assembly.
• Skilled in structured problem-solving methods such as Six Sigma, 8D, Pareto analysis, DOE, fishbone, and Is/Is-Not.
• Familiar with core quality tools: process flow diagrams, PFMEA, control plans, SPC, MSA, and process capability studies.
• Experience with seat safety and regulatory requirements, and with seat and trim durability and abuse testing.