Supplier Quality Engineer

About Sherman + Reilly

Sherman + Reilly, Inc. is a Chattanooga-based manufacturer of tools and equipment for the electric utility industry, serving utility companies, cooperatives, and line contractors around the world. As part of the Quanta Services family of companies, we combine over a century of industry expertise with the resources and stability of a global infrastructure leader. Our products are designed, engineered, and manufactured here — by a team that takes genuine pride in what comes off the floor.

The Opportunity

Sherman + Reilly is hiring a Supplier Quality Engineer in Chattanooga, TN. You would manage quality performance across the parts we buy and the parts we build. On the supplier side that means administering our Quality Plan Level (QPL) program, which sets documentation and inspection requirements based on how critical a part is to machine function and safety. On the internal side it means working with Operations on in-process inspection, nonconformance disposition, and the defects that start on our own floor.

The role reports to the Quality Manager and works across Supply Chain, Engineering, Production and Service.

Most supplier quality roles are built around holding a mature supply base to a standard. This one is built around developing one. A real part of the work is sitting down with suppliers to build out process documentation rather than rejecting a submission and moving on. You would also be unusually close to the product. We design what we buy, our volumes are low and our mix is high, and our equipment goes into the field where a nonconforming part can be a safety concern or stop a critical infrastructure process.

If you like digging into documentation and process detail, and you would rather develop a supplier than replace one, this is the job for you.

What You’ll Do

• Verify that supplier documentation meets QPL program requirements before or at part acceptance and pursue missing or inadequate submissions before they affect production.

• Be the person suppliers come to with questions about quality requirements and documentation.

• Manage quality issues from discovery through closure, including containment, sort, disposition, and return or rework decisions.

• Lead root cause analysis with suppliers and drive corrective action to verified effectiveness.

• Work with suppliers who do not have formal process documentation to build it, and confirm requirements carry through to their sub-tier suppliers.

• Support inspection plan content and acceptance criteria so inspection lands where part criticality and supplier performance justify it.

• Work with Operations on internal inspection practice, nonconformance disposition and root cause analysis on defects originating in-house.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, quality, manufacturing or a related technical field, or equivalent supplier quality experience.

• Three or more years of supplier quality, manufacturing quality or quality engineering experience in a manufacturing environment.

• Hands-on CMM experience, programming or operating, and the ability to interpret CMM output including datum alignment, form and profile results, and measurement uncertainty.

• Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications and GD&T, and to hold technical discussions with both design engineers and supplier manufacturing personnel.

• Structured problem solving and root cause analysis capability such as 8D and 5-Why, plus working knowledge of supplier quality evidence types including inspection records, material test reports, non-destructive testing and functional testing.

Preferred

• Experience with castings, weldments, machined components or hydraulic assemblies, and familiarity…