MANUFACTURING ENGINEER
Industrial/Medical parts manufacturing · Northwest Indiana · Full-time, on-site
Why this seat exists
A Industrial/medical parts supplier in Northwest Indiana has already scaled. Output is up sharply, a new multi-axis machining cell is on the floor, and the order book is still growing. Engineering team consists of 14 professionals and growing. The ideal candidate is one who can think critically, identify weaknesses, see waste, modify processes and continue to look for new opportunities to add value
This is not a coordinator role and it is not a first manufacturing job. The plant is in an expansion phase. Processes that were good enough at the old rate are now the constraint. They need someone who has already done Lean and continuous improvement with their own hands and owns the results: time studies, scrap and yield projects, fixture and process-aid design, work instructions operators will follow, and the change management required to make a new method stick.
The work
You will be a trusted advisor to manufacturing leadership, production, quality, maintenance, and design engineering. The scoreboard is quality, delivery, cost, and safety on composite parts.
- Own process stability for composite lay-up, curing, machining, bonding, and finishing. Document it, then make it better.
- Design the hardware of repeatability. Jigs, fixtures, molds, and process aids that improve ergonomics and operator safety, not just the print.
- Get new parts into stable production volume. Process plans, routing steps, and tooling so prototype work does not become a permanent fire drill.
- Run continuous improvement that shows up in the numbers. Scrap, cycle time, yield, bottlenecks. 5S, DMAIC, value stream mapping, time studies, root cause.
- Keep the system of record honest. Work instructions, process flows, PFMEAs, and ECO implementation that matches what the floor actually does.
- Use data, then automate where it pays. SPC and DOE to cut variation. Support for shop-floor visibility (Power BI, Grafana, or similar) and practical automation or IIoT monitoring in composite processes.
- Close the loop with Quality. CAPA, process controls that prevent the next nonconformance, and a useful voice in MRB.
What “hit the ground running” means
The hiring team will believe the resume when they hear a specific project. Bring examples, not a tool list.
- You have improved a live production process with Lean or Six Sigma methods and can name the before-and-after.
- You have pushed a process change through the people who had to live with it. Training a slide is not the same as adoption.
- You can take an unclear yield, cycle-time, or capability problem, kill the wrong theory, and land on a cause you can prove.
- You are comfortable designing or directing tooling in SolidWorks, CATIA, or AutoCAD.
- You have worked inside ECO and NPI workflows and an ERP or MES, not only beside them.
- You can talk about automation and digitizing a factory floor in terms of a process you would instrument, not a vendor brochure.
Background they will lean toward
- Transferable: a process-intensive plant (medical device, aerospace, industrial, or similar) where tooling, documentation, and process control were part of the job. Composite experience is an advantage, not a hard gate, if the Lean work and the judgment are real.
- Level: several years of hands-on manufacturing engineering. Early-career engineers who still need daily direction are not the target. Certifications (Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, CMfgE, composites) help. A closed project helps more.
- Education: bachelor's in manufacturing, mechanical, industrial, or materials engineering, or a closely related field.
Who should not apply
Project coordinators, pure design engineers with no floor time, and candidates whose Lean experience is a training class.
