H&T Kansas

Description:

The Role and Responsibilities

As a Manufacturing Engineer, you bridge product design and production by developing, optimizing, and troubleshooting the processes, machinery, and systems that turn raw materials into finished goods. Your focus is maximizing efficiency and delivery, ensuring safety and quality, minimizing waste, and reducing costs. You define and sustain standard work and line balance, maintain a strong shop-floor presence, and use MES and basic statistics to monitor capability and correct losses that affect throughput, first-pass yield, scrap, and changeovers. You design and qualify tooling, fixtures, and ergonomic workstations, coordinate preventive maintenance and spares with Maintenance, and lead process design and validation for both existing products and new introductions. You drive structured problem solving, plan and communicate changes with minimal disruption, and maintain clear process documentation, process flows, and work instructions while enabling operator training and visual management. You also support pilot builds, and PPAP to ensure smooth ramp ups to stable volume production.

Your Key Areas of Impact

Process Optimization: You will design and implement efficient workflows, assembly-line layouts, and production processes using Lean and Six Sigma methods to remove waste, compress cycle time, standardize best practices, and improve flow and take adherence.

Tooling, and Fixtures: You will engineer, qualify, and sustain fixtures, gauges, and workstations that improve repeatability and ease of use, reduce variation and rework, and enhance operator safety and productivity.

Process Documentation and Validation: You will create and maintain PFMEA, process flows, work instructions, and validation protocols, ensuring clear training materials and consistent, compliant execution as products and methods evolve.

New Product Introduction: You will support Design for Manufacturing, capacity planning, pilot builds, and approval packages PPAP, coordinating trials and ramp up plans so new products transition smoothly from prototype to stable volume production.

Quality and Root Cause Analysis: You will lead or support root-cause and corrective actions on yield and defect issues, align containment and verification with Quality, and drive durable fixes that prevent recurrence.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: You will coordinate with Production, Quality, Maintenance, Supply Chain, and EHS to plan changes, schedule trials, communicate risks, and execute safely and compliantly with minimal disruption to output.

Project Coordination and Communication: You will ensure clear communication throughout project execution, coordinating information flow among teams and vendors, facilitating smooth project delivery.

Industry Trends and Technology Enhancements: Staying up to date with industry advancements, you will suggest architectural and technological improvements, enhancing system capabilities and maintaining a competitive edge.

Visual Management and Lean Sustainment: You will implement visual controls, standard work, layered process audits, and 5S to sustain improvements and ensure that deviations are quickly detected and addressed

Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical/Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering (or equivalent experience) and 3+ years in production/process engineering with proven Safety, Quality, Delivery, and Cost results. Strong in PFMEA, control plans, process flows, standard work, and fixture/workstation design with GD&T. Proficient in CAD (SolidWorks/Inventor/AutoCAD), SPC and capability (Cp/Cpk), and basic statistics (Minitab/Excel). Comfortable using MES/ERP systems and shop-floor data (OEE, scrap, downtime). Knowledge of PPAP and Engineering Change Request processes. Demonstrated Lean/Six Sigma impact; hands-on problem solver able to run trials and basic DOE, communicate clearly, train operators, and align cross-functional teams. Industry experience and familiarity with IATF 16949, automation/robotics/vision, industrial data systems and a Green Belt are preferred.

The Work Environment, Physical Demands, and Travel

Your work is conducted in a dynamic manufacturing setting where exposure to noise and fumes is common, necessitating the use of appropriate personal protective equipment and adherence to safety protocols. You must be able to remain in a stationary position 75% of the time, whether standing or sitting, and be able to move about inside the facility. Your work requires manual dexterity, as you will regularly use hands to operate machinery, tools, or controls, and handle or manipulate objects. The ability to hear and discern various sounds and alarms is crucial for maintaining safety and operational efficiency. You operate a computer 70% of the time. You need to be able to lift to 50 lbs. Available for domestic and international travel up to 25% during the initial training period of six (6) months. Occasional domestic travel of 1-2 times annually required beyond that.