Project Manager

About the Role

Endless Summer Technologies, a subsidiary to Johnson Outdoors requires a Project Manager to be based at their Durban site. Under general direction of department leaders, organizes, tracks and champions the design and development of products from ideation to production. Manages multiple simple to moderately complex projects to ensure that new products are completed to established specification, scheduling, and product cost requirements.

• Reviews project plan and proposals and works with management to develop project objectives. Identifies project responsibilities by determining the phases and elements of the project.
• Determines project schedule and timelines by studying the project plan and specifications, calculating time requirements and sequencing project elements.
• Partners with the brand management team to determine requirements for a new product or product platform.
• Collaborates with engineering technical team to allocate technical resources for a project.
• Advocates for the design team, identifies and clears potential roadblocks.
• Controls and monitors project plans, reviews any design, specifications, plan, and schedule changes and recommends actions to improve project outcomes.
• Monitors product costs and capital spending. Proposes and pursues solutions if either goes over budget.
• Identifies manufacturing/operations and purchasing issues that require resolution to successfully complete a project and drive the decision process.
• Identifies technology and design issues that require resolution to successfully complete a project and drive the decision process.
• Facilitates activities within the company in support of completing project milestones. Tracks project milestones and deliverables, and effectively maintains project documentation.
• Communicates with project stakeholders on an ongoing basis. Prepares project status reports by collecting, analyzing, and summarizing information and trends and recommends actions as needed to improve outcomes.
• Establishes design qualification, field testing, and production testing plans and success criteria.
• Coordinates with production/operations to successfully transfer a new product from ideation to production.
• Conducts training classes for customer service personnel for new products.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

• Typically requires a bachelor’s degree in mechanical, electrical engineering or equivalent.
• Typically requires minimum 2 to 5 years of experience in engineering related to design and/or project management.
• Advantageous to have an active project management certification (PMI/PMBOK) and preferred qualifications in project management
• Able to articulate a complete product development process from ideation to production.
• Broad technical knowledge and design experience relating to the core competency technologies.
• Skills and ability to effectively give direction and guidance and work well within the cooperative culture of the organization.
• Ability to take ownership of a project and be able to organize and manage it while motivating technical professionals to produce quality designs on schedule.
• Ability to conform to shifting priorities, requirements, and timelines.
• Project management skills and experience that demonstrates the candidate can effectively establish and accomplish product development objectives.
• Proactive management and problem troubleshooting techniques.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills to effectively develop project documents and work with cross functional teams throughout the organization.