Director of Quality

Location: Franklin, MA

Travel: Up to 25% domestic travel with occasional international travel

Compensation: $189,000–$238,000 base salary + annual bonus

A growing U.S. defense and advanced-technology organization is seeking an experienced Director of Quality Operations & Configuration Strategy to provide enterprise leadership across product quality, configuration management, supplier quality, compliance, and production readiness.

This executive-level role will lead quality and configuration activities supporting both complex hardware manufacturing and technical-service programs across multiple U.S. operations.

A key near-term focus will be supporting major defense hardware programs as they transition from qualification and first-article activity into sustained production and customer acceptance
.

The successful candidate will combine deep aerospace and defense quality experience with strong operational leadership, configuration-management expertise, supplier-quality knowledge, and the ability to build scalable systems and high-performing teams.

• Lead a team of approximately 25 Quality and Configuration Management professionals across multiple locations.
• Establish and execute an enterprise quality strategy aligned with program, customer, manufacturing, and business objectives.
• Strengthen organizational capability by improving processes, systems, metrics, governance, and accountability.
• Drive consistent quality practices across multiple business units and operating locations.
• Build an organization focused on prevention, predictable performance, and continuous improvement.

• Lead quality execution for complex defense hardware programs throughout the product lifecycle.
• Support programs through:
• Qualification testing
• First Article Inspection
• Production readiness
• Acceptance testing
• Rate production
• Customer and Government acceptance
• Partner with Manufacturing and Operations to improve:
• Rolled throughput yield
• Process capability
• Delivery performance
• Ensure quality requirements are embedded within production planning, manufacturing execution, and program schedules.

• Provide leadership over Material Review Board activities, nonconformance management, root-cause investigation, and corrective-action closure
  .
• Ensure corrective actions are sustainable, data-driven, and supported by objective evidence.
• Reduce recurring defects, quality escapes, rework, and cost of poor quality.
• Establish processes that identify and resolve quality issues before they affect final test or customer delivery.

• Serve as a senior quality representative with customers, prime contractors, Government Quality Representatives, and DCMA
  .
• Lead responses to:
• Customer quality concerns
• Audits and assessments
• Corrective-action requests
• Deviations
• Waivers
• Production and acceptance issues
• Build productive relationships with customer, Government, supplier, and internal quality stakeholders.

• Drive structured improvement initiatives using Lean, Six Sigma, Root Cause Analysis, and related problem-solving methodologies
  .
• Establish and monitor quality performance metrics, including:
• Defect and escape rates
• Cycle time
• Corrective-action closure
• Cost of poor quality
• Develop dashboards and executive-level reporting to communicate performance, risk, trends, and improvement priorities.

• Lead the continued development and maturity of the organization’s Quality Management System.
• Ensure compliance with contractual, customer, regulatory, and industry requirements.
• Maintain and support standards and certifications including:
• AS9100D
• AS9102
• ISO 9001:2015
• CMMI-SVC ML3
• Standardize and harmonize quality processes across multiple business entities and facilities.
• Improve audit readiness, process consistency, and organizational quality maturity.

• Provide leadership for hardware configuration management throughout the complete product lifecycle.
• Maintain configuration integrity between engineering design, manufacturing records, and as-built product
  .
• Lead and support:
• Configuration Control Boards
• Baseline management
• Deviations and waivers
• Product configuration records
• Maintain strong configuration discipline during periods of simultaneous engineering change and active production.
• Ensure complete data…