About the role

The role of Process Engineer – Surface Technologies, is to be responsible for the creation, review and continuous improvement of the plating shop processes and standards, identification of areas for new plating shop tooling, supporting internal or external resources to manufacture required tooling and to troubleshoot plating production defects, in order to ensure the production of quality parts. This include definition of quality KPI metrics for trend and root cause analysis.

To support the wider plating shop team to develop continuous improvement plans, support facilities development and day-to-day production targets for throughput and quality and to support business in wider REACH and COSHH assessment for other non-plating shop substances.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Developing, configuring and optimizing processes from inception through to start up and steady state monitoring. Assessing data from said processes for best practices and continuous improvement
• Create and document standards (materials / test methods / equipment etc.)
• Perform and maintain FMEA analysis for all plating shop processes, ensuring that risk mitigation actions are in place and being managed. Create and own technical risk assessment for the Surface Technology department
• Define operational quality metrics for the Operations team, ensuring the ability to capture quality trends and aid root cause analysis Develop supporting engineering documentation for the plating shop (Job Cards for plating shop and plating shop related processes
• Develop standards for current and future plating activities including but not limited to process improvement, process standardization, line design, and cost reduction.
• Analyse plating solutions, equipment and current practices for applicability to OEM / Approved standards (e.g. Boeing SOPM / CMM / ASTM requirements), monitoring any changes to this OEM / Approved data
• Where required for either New Capability or process improvements, identify and new production tooling requirements
• Supporting both internal and external resources in production of new tooling to ensure product quality, throughput and consistency. Provide production with required documentation for tool use.
• As required by the changes in the business review new substances for both OEM adherence and REACH / COSHH requirements, aiding the SHE assessment process.
• Technical support of daily operations, developments and laboratory operations
• Investigate and develop new processes, methods, and layouts to increase equipment flexibility and improve throughput, within the OEM standard constraints, supported by the Continuous Improvement team
• Investigate non-conformities and within a matrix environment to amend processes or tooling until deficiency or unsatisfactory condition is corrected.
• Perform economic analysis of alternative chemistries and process operations, including alignment to processes within the wider Product division
• Where applicable work with the OEM for concessions / approvals for improvements to plating shop processes to optimise the production system.
• Where applicable, working with the wider engineer team, develop 21J / CRAS approvals for processes and procedural improvements over the OEM published data.

Education and Qualifications

• Bachelors of Engineering - Mechanical / Aeronautical Engineer or Process Engineer. Alternatively a Bachelors of Science degree in Chemical Engineering or related science with proven interest in improving surface technologies

Experience and Knowledge

• Highly Innovative, analytical, decisive, multi-tasked, and goal oriented individual is required with the ability to manage time and resources
• Ideally 3-5 years of electro-plating or plating experience in a R & D or process related position. Experience in a multi-faceted metal finishing operation that produces finished parts, ideally for Aerospace components.
• Training in Lean manufacturing, Continuous improvement, and Statistical Process Control
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to distil technical information for both a technical and non-technical audience
• An approachable team player, who proven to work in a matrix environment
• Excellent IT and numeracy skills, ideally with knowledge of MRP & ERP / MS Office systems
• Experience of working within an Aerospace environment to EASA 145 standard or equivalent manufacturing/maintenance industry
• Understanding of REACH and COSHH requirements at a working level
• Candidate must have good written communication skills and have proven experience of working and communicating with a world-wide customer base

Direct Reports

• No direct reports

Working Conditions

• The job requires the person to be flexible in terms of working schedule – based on the needs of the business. Some duty travel may be considered necessary to cooperate with other station within the Group.
• The role is office based, however day-to-day support of the plating shop will require significant time within this area and therefore the employee will be exposed to toxic and corrosive chemicals.

Additional Requirements

• Candidate must have the right to live and work in the UK unrestricted
• Mandatory Training will be required