Founded in 1986 as a partnership between Nittoku and Autoneum, UGN is the preferred producer of high quality acoustic, interior trim, and thermal management products, and a recognized leader in customer satisfaction for the Japanese transplant automotive industry in North America. UGN, with more than $400 million in revenue, has six locations in the United States—Novi, Michigan; Jackson, Tennessee; Monroe, Ohio; Somerset, Kentucky; Downers Grove, Illinois; and Valparaiso, Indiana; as well as a location in Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico—specializing in manufacturing, research, development, testing, and service support.
For 6 years in a row UGN has achieved ranking as a “Best Company to Work for in Illinois”. Based on three core values of Respect, Trust and Communication, UGN prides itself on a unique culture that is the UGN Way.
Learn more about UGN at: https://ugn.com/
https://vimeo.com/255503961
https://www.linkedin.com/company/66127
As the Director of Quality at UGN, you will take charge of driving our total quality program. You won't just facilitate and administer; you'll actively lead and develop it. Your role involves crafting and executing strategies, master plans, and timelines to ensure we meet and exceed our corporate quality objectives. You'll be hands-on, auditing every aspect of our operations from verifying system compliance, product design, along with developing departmental budgets and policies. Your mission is to meet or exceed every customer requirement. Working closely with the Leadership Team, you'll spearhead efforts to achieve unparalleled customer satisfaction by maintaining top-notch product quality. Collaborating with fellow executives, you'll cultivate an environment of respect, trust, and communication. You won't just promote team development; you'll actively foster it. Engaging in dynamic strategic planning, you'll implement best practices and craft budgets that reflect our commitment to excellence. Your leadership will propel UGN towards continued future successes. This pivotal role will be based at our headquarters in Downers Grove, IL, where you'll drive our quality initiatives forward with passion and purpose.
Responsibilities:
- Qualify UGN product to customer requirements, including directing design concepts, checking fixture concepts and process capabilities to achieve customer specifications, and qualifying test and measurement systems and tooling. Oversee approval of supplier PPAP.
- Lead and manage implementation of any customer required and/or corporate directed quality system such as ISO9001:2000, TS16949, ISO14001, etc, including directing Quality Engineering and Quality Planning activities to ensure compliance to the above quality systems.
- Recommend the Quality System Registrar for UGN.
- Establish corrective action system format and assist in problem analysis, including maintaining customer contacts along with facility Quality Managers to resolve issues at customer locations when required.
- Collect, analyze, and report key corporate measurables, i.e., for internal and external quality PPM's, delivery PPM's, process capabilities, etc. as directed by UGN corporate vision and goals, to provide direction and analysis of progress toward achieving world-class quality practices.
- Plan and administer new test equipment procedures, methods, and standards to ensure accurate interpretation and verification of all required specifications.
- Administer and direct internal quality control programs, such as Engineering Changes, SPC (Statistical Process Control) activities, and Measurement Systems Analysis to ensure all customer required special characteristics are monitored and reported as required.
- Work directly with the Plant Manager and local quality departments to develop and maintain compliance with Quality systems and processes.
- Must be practitioner of problem solving: 5WHY problem solving, including design of experiments based on knowledge of other best practice problem solving methodologies.
- Lean a Quality Engineering team along with planning and administering improvements to the overall new product launch process.
- Oversee UGN document control and production testing/validation.
- Maintain knowledge and direct UGN toward compliance to the current AIAG APQP standard as deemed necessary.
- Must be hands-on and shop floor focused.
- Promote an environment of cooperation and respect among UGN Team Members.
- Champion open communication throughout all departments of UGN.
- Implement best practices to foster UGN's growth and continued viability.
- Participate in budget planning activities and develop, monitor, manage and achieve annual departmental budget expectations.
- Manages, mentors and coaches other Team Members within the quality department.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree from accredited four-year college or university.
- Ten plus years related quality experience with progressive management experience.
- Experience with APQP, PPAP, ISO/TS 16949 is required.
- Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills with the ability to lead and mentor a team.
- Automotive manufacturing experience required, and Japanese automotive customer experience preferred.
- Project management skills and the ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.
- Thorough understanding of lean principles.
- Ability to travel (approximately 40%).
To perform this job successfully an individual should have proficiency in Microsoft Office applications- -Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams.
UGNPIJ