Process Engineer - Customer Integration & Continuous Improvement in Duncan

Job Description Job Description

Southern Machine Works, Inc. is a growing precision manufacturer in Duncan, Oklahoma serving aerospace, defense, firearms, and other demanding industries. We are seeking a Process Engineer to help strengthen customer integration, manufacturing systems, and continuous improvement as the company grows.

The Process Engineer – Customer Integration & Continuous Improvement will be a cross-functional technical leader responsible for improving how work moves from the customer into production and through the manufacturing process.

This is not a traditional engineering role focused solely on designing parts or processes.

The right person will work directly with customers, programmers, quality personnel, manufacturing leadership, and operators to make our processes more organized, repeatable, measurable, and scalable.

A major objective of the position is to identify areas where our current processes depend too heavily on individual knowledge or informal practices and replace them with practical systems that work in a fast-moving precision manufacturing environment.

• Serve as a technical point of contact during onboarding of new customers, programs, and parts.
• Work directly with customer engineering and procurement teams to clarify drawings, specifications, tolerances, manufacturing requirements, and technical questions.
• Help translate customer requirements into executable manufacturing processes.
• Coordinate technical changes and customer revisions across programming, manufacturing, quality, inspection, and documentation.
• Help establish disciplined processes for managing engineering changes without disrupting production or introducing revision-control risk.

• Evaluate existing manufacturing workflows and identify opportunities to improve consistency, throughput, quality, and ease of execution.
• Develop and document repeatable processes for launching new parts and transitioning them into stable production.
• Help standardize the flow of information between estimating, engineering/programming, quality, and manufacturing.
• Work with CNC programmers and manufacturing personnel to improve setup methods, tooling strategies, work holding, process documentation, and overall manufacturability.
• Identify and reduce dependence on tribal knowledge by converting successful practices into documented standard work.

• Develop standardized procedures for CAD/CAM programming, engineering-data management, CNC program revision control, and release of programs to the shop floor.
• Help establish clear ownership and approval processes for CNC programs and related manufacturing documentation.
• Improve how drawings, models, specifications, setup information, tooling data, and other technical information are organized and controlled.
• Ensure manufacturing personnel have reliable access to the correct information at the correct revision.

• Work closely with Quality to improve and standardize the First Article Inspection process.
• Help reduce the time required to move new parts from programming and setup through inspection and production approval.
• Support compliance with AS9100 and AS9102 requirements.
• Assist with investigation and resolution of dimensional discrepancies, manufacturing problems, and customer technical concerns.
• Participate in root-cause analysis and corrective-action efforts when manufacturing or quality issues occur.

• Help establish and lead a practical, shop-wide continuous improvement program.
• Identify opportunities to reduce setup time, machining time, handling, waiting, rework, redundant processes, and other forms of waste.
• Use Lean manufacturing tools such as 5S, Kaizen, value-stream mapping, standard work, and structured problem solving where appropriate.
• Use manufacturing and operational data to identify opportunities and measure improvement.
• Work with leadership and shop personnel to prioritize improvement projects that create measurable operational or financial results.
• Build continuous improvement into normal operations rather than treating it as a separate initiative.

We are looking for someone who is equally comfortable discussing a drawing with a customer engineer, working through a manufacturing problem with a CNC programmer, reviewing an inspection issue with Quality, and helping management design a better process.

The ideal candidate understands that successful process improvement in a smaller manufacturing company requires both technical knowledge and practicality.

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related field or equivalent hands-on manufacturing experience.
• Approximately 5+ years of experience in precision CNC machining, aerospace manufacturing, or another highly regulated manufacturing environment.
• Strong…