Quality assurance engineer Jobs in Fort Wayne, IN

Quality Manager

What Success Looks Like

• Maintains a daily presence on the production floor.
• Understands the largest sources of scrap, rework, waste, and process variation within the facility.
• Can explain current quality performance, quality trends, major corrective actions, customer concerns, and improvement priorities.
• Knows where quality losses are occurring and develops action plans to eliminate them.
• Uses data to prioritize resources and focus improvement efforts where they generate the greatest business impact.
• Builds systems that prevent defects rather than relying on inspection to catch defects.
• Partners directly with Production Managers and Supervisors to improve process capability and first-pass yield.
• Leads root cause investigations that address systemic causes rather than individual blame.
• Ensures corrective actions are implemented, sustained, and verified for effectiveness.
• Maintains visible quality performance metrics throughout the facility.
• Develops and executes plans to reduce Cost of Poor Quality.
• Establishes accountability for quality performance across all departments.
• Ensures customer requirements, industry standards, and regulatory requirements are consistently achieved.
• Develops Quality personnel into knowledgeable and effective business partners.
• Uses Qualtrax as a management system, not simply a document storage system.
• Creates a culture where quality is understood to be everyone's responsibility.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Management System Leadership

• Serve as owner and administrator of the facility's Quality Management System within Qualtrax.
• Maintain all controlled procedures, work instructions, forms, standards, and quality records.
• Ensure document control processes remain effective and compliant.
• Lead Management Review processes and ensure actions are completed.
• Maintain compliance with AS9100, customer requirements, and internal standards.
• Continuously improve the effectiveness of the Quality Management System.

Quality Performance Management

• Monitor and report facility quality performance metrics.
• Develop and maintain quality dashboards, scorecards, and KPI reporting.
• Analyze scrap, rework, first-pass yield, customer complaints, and nonconformance trends.
• Establish measurable improvement plans for quality performance gaps.
• Track and communicate progress against quality objectives.
• Provide leadership with accurate assessment of quality risks and opportunities.

Scrap, Waste & Cost Reduction

• Identify and prioritize the largest drivers of scrap, rework, and Cost of Poor Quality.
• Lead initiatives focused on waste elimination and defect reduction.
• Partner with Operations and Engineering to reduce process variation.
• Develop action plans to achieve annual scrap reduction objectives.
• Track effectiveness of quality improvement initiatives and validate results.
• Drive measurable reductions in Cost of Poor Quality.

Corrective & Preventive Action Leadership

• Own the Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) process.
• Facilitate structured root cause analysis investigations.
• Lead cross-functional corrective action teams.
• Ensure corrective actions address root causes rather than symptoms.
• Verify effectiveness of corrective actions.
• Maintain accountability for closure of corrective actions.

Customer Quality Management

• Serve as primary contact for customer quality concerns.
• Lead investigations involving customer complaints, returns, escapes, and corrective actions.
• Coordinate customer audits and quality reviews.
• Monitor customer quality scorecards and performance indicators.
• Ensure customer requirements are effectively communicated and implemented.
• Develop action plans to improve customer satisfaction and quality performance.

Supplier Quality Management

• Develop and maintain supplier quality programs.
• Monitor supplier quality performance and incoming quality trends.
• Coordinate supplier corrective actions.
• Conduct supplier evaluations and audits as required.
• Partner with Purchasing to improve supplier performance.
• Ensure suppliers consistently meet quality requirements.

Manufacturing Quality Support

• Conduct routine process audits, layered audits, and shop floor reviews.
• Verify adherence to established procedures, process controls, and quality standards.
• Support first-piece inspections, process validations, and quality planning activities.
• Work directly with production personnel to identify and eliminate sources of variation.
• Promote quality-at-the-source principles.
• Ensure quality requirements are consistently applied across all departments and shifts.

Continuous Improvement

• Lead quality-focused continuous improvement initiatives.
• Utilize Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, SPC, Pareto Analysis, and statistical tools to improve process performance.
• Reduce variation, improve process capability, and increase first-pass yield.
• Participate in Kaizen events and improvement projects.
• Drive sustainable process improvements through data-driven decision making.

Quality Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop Quality Engineers, Inspectors, and Technicians.
• Establish departmental goals, expectations, and performance standards.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and development discussions.
• Build technical capability within the Quality organization.
• Develop succession plans for key quality positions.
• Promote accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement within the department.

Key Performance Measures

The Quality Manager is accountable for achieving improvements in the following areas:

Quality Performance

• Scrap Percentage
• Rework Percentage
• First Pass Yield (FPY)
• Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ)
• Internal Defect Rate
• Non-Conforming Material Reports (NCMR)

Customer Quality

• Customer Complaints
• Customer Escapes
• Customer PPM
• Corrective Action Closure
• Customer Scorecard Performance

Quality System Performance

• AS9100 Audit Results
• Internal Audit Performance
• External Audit Performance
• CAPA Effectiveness
• Document Control Accuracy
• Management Review Completion
• Qualtrax System Effectiveness

Supplier Quality

• Supplier Defect Rate
• Supplier Corrective Action Closure
• Incoming Material Quality Performance

Continuous Improvement

• Scrap Reduction
• Rework Reduction
• Cost Reduction Through Quality Improvements
• Repeat Defect Elimination
• Process Capability Improvements

Required Competencies

Leadership

• Team Development
• Coaching and Mentoring
• Accountability Management
• Change Leadership
• Cross-Functional Collaboration

Quality Management

• AS9100
• Auditing
• Corrective Action Systems
• Root Cause Analysis
• Quality Management Systems
• Document Control

Data Analysis

• Statistical Process Control (SPC)
• Pareto Analysis
• Process Capability Analysis
• KPI Management
• Trend Analysis