Supervisor Quality Lab

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Lafayette, IN, US

Salary Range: $70,000.00 To $80,000.00 Annually

Position Summary:

Leads the day-to-day operation of the plant quality laboratory supporting magnet wire manufacturing. Responsible for ensuring timely, accurate, and consistent testing of raw materials, in-process wire, and finished magnet wire to verify compliance with customer specifications, internal standards, applicable ASTM/NEMA/IEC requirements, and the plant Quality Management System. Provides technical and operational leadership to laboratory technicians, maintains laboratory testing capability and equipment, ensures proper test methods and documentation, investigates nonconforming test results, and partners closely with Operations, Process/Technology, Engineering, Maintenance, and Customer Quality to resolve product and process issues.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

1. Laboratory Operations

• Supervise daily activities of Quality Lab Technicians and other assigned laboratory personnel.
• Establish daily testing priorities based on production schedules, customer requirements, product holds, trials, and shipment needs.
• Ensure required in-process and finished-product testing is completed accurately and on time.
• Maintain appropriate laboratory coverage to support manufacturing operations.
• Monitor laboratory workload, turnaround time, and testing backlog.
• Ensure samples are properly identified, handled, tested, retained, and disposed of according to established procedures.
• Ensure test results are entered accurately into applicable quality and manufacturing systems.
• Maintain effective shift-to-shift communication regarding testing issues, product holds, and priority samples.

2. Magnet Wire Testing - Provide oversight and technical support for magnet wire testing, which may include:

• Conductor diameter and dimensional measurements, overall wire diameter, enamel/build thickness, electrical resistance, elongation, tensile strength, spring back, flexibility and adherence, mandrel/wrap testing, scrape abrasion, cut-through, heat shock, thermal endurance-related testing, dielectric breakdown, continuity testing, pinholes, solvent resistance, bond strength for bondable products, surface condition and visual inspection, conductor exposure/bleed-through evaluation, other customer-, product-, or specification-specific testing.
• Ensure laboratory personnel understand not only how to perform each test, but also the significance of the results to magnet wire performance and customer applications.

3. Quality Control & Product Disposition

• Review test results for compliance with product specifications and control limits.
• Respond immediately to out-of-specification or abnormal test results.
• Ensure suspect material is appropriately identified, contained, and placed on quality hold when required.
• Coordinate retesting and verification of questionable results.
• Partner with Production and Quality leadership to determine appropriate corrective actions.
• Identify trends in laboratory results that may indicate deterioration in manufacturing process performance.
• Escalate significant product-quality risks promptly.

4. Problem Solving & Root Cause Analysis

• Lead or participate in investigations involving product failures, laboratory abnormalities, customer complaints, and process-related quality issues.
• Utilize structured problem-solving methods such as:
  • 5 Why
  • Fishbone/Ishikawa analysis
  • 8D
  • Pareto analysis
  • Statistical analysis
• Work with Operations, Engineering, Technology, and Maintenance to identify root causes and implement corrective and preventive actions.
• Verify effectiveness of corrective actions through testing and data analysis.

5. Laboratory Equipment & Calibration

• Ensure laboratory equipment is properly maintained, calibrated, verified, and available for use.
• Maintain calibration schedules and records in accordance with the Quality Management System.
• Ensure equipment found outside calibration requirements is properly controlled and evaluated for potential impact on previous test results.
• Coordinate preventive maintenance and repair of laboratory equipment.
• Support evaluation and purchase of new laboratory equipment.
• Develop and maintain appropriate measurement system controls.
• Participate in Measurement System Analysis (MSA) and Gauge R&R studies where appropriate.

6. Standards & Quality Systems - Ensure testing activities comply with applicable requirements, which may include:

• ISO 9001, IATF 16949, where applicable, NEMA magnet wire standards, ASTM test methods, IEC standards, customer-specific requirements, internal product and process specifications
• Maintain laboratory procedures, work instructions, test methods, forms, and records.
• Support internal, customer, registrar, and regulatory audits involving laboratory operations.
• Ensure laboratory practices support traceability of test results to product, production lot, machine,…