Position Summary:

The Principal Tooling/Vision Engineer is a "hands-on" position that plans, directs, and coordinates manufacturing equipment and processes to produce high quality injection/blow molded plastic product.

Responsible for coordinating the molding efforts on new program launches, setting up and/or revising manufacturing processes and assisting the manufacturing operations in problem solving and continuous process improvements.

While monitoring the effectiveness of processes this individual quantifies results, documents, and presents findings to management and prepares reports.

This position also mentors and provides training to other injection/blow molding personnel.

Primary Responsibilities:

Function as a Plastics/Vision Subject Matter Expert (SME) to assist with the development, production, and maintenance of plastic parts:

Troubleshoot problems with existing parts by determining root cause and resolving issues from non-conforming materials. Take immediate actions as needed to improve quality and keep production going.

Assist as needed with Change Requests, First Article Inspections, Validation/Verification of new parts and changes following our policies and processes around quality control.

Travel as needed to work with vendors.

Develop and implement machine vision systems utilized to measure various plastic part parameters.

Specify machine vision components, acquire quotes, and facilitate purchase justifications.

Specify lighting, controllers, lenses, and filters as needed for the machine vision systems.

Design machine vision mounts, supervise fabrication and installation of the machine vision mounts.

Systems shall include image acquisition and processing.

System shall be able to provide pattern recognition.

Maintain various machine vision software applications.

Assist suppliers with drafting quality protocols and overseeing their execution including use of reject artifacts to challenge and verify the machine vision system’s reject detection and rejection mechanisms.

Develop and deploy a relevant operator interface that will facilitate:

Table of inspection results, Pass/Fail counters for each rejectable attribute.

Manual inspection results counter reset function by maintenance technicians.

Analyze and interpret data collected from vision systems that are specific to the tooling applications. Namely, develop a time-stamped record for each inspection variable and attribute data, such as a .csv file with a one row per inspection data recording method or some other approved database method.

Ability to train and support others in the use of the vision systems. This must include remote login capability in order to support machine vision systems remotely.

Create a means to consistently reject bad parts and approve good parts. Minimize false rejects.

Monitor and report issues with injection/blow molds and make recommendations for refurbishment based on production factors such as cycles, process capability and tooling history.

Develop new processes, assess, and document new and existing processes. Implement and evaluate changes to existing processes designed to improve product quality, productivity, and overall equipment efficiency.

Implement technical solutions including statistical methodology to meet customer cost, quality, and delivery expectations.

Use Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and other techniques to analyze process data to determine capabilities as well as improvement.

Provide technical leadership and mentorship to process technicians, operators, and other molding personnel.

Education, Skills, Experience:

Bachelors degree in Engineering or Material Science with 10 years of experience in vision OR

An Associates degree with 15 years of experience in vision system OR

In lieu of a degree, high school diploma/GED with 20 years of experience in vision system

Designing, building, maintaining, troubleshooting machine vision systems.

Familiar with a wide range of molding processes including injection molding, blow molding, structural foam, compression molding, vacuum forming, etc.

Experience with tooling systems preferred but not required

Working in a regulated industry (design control), preferably FDA project management.

Able to travel in the 75% range. Most travel will be drivable from the Raliegh/Durham area.

Knowledge of statistical methods is a plus.

Able to prioritize projects and multitask between multiple projects in parallel.

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