Manufacturing Engineering Manager

Job Details

Job Location:

Smalley LZ - Lake Zurich, IL

Position Type:
Full Time

Salary Range: $ - $ Salary

Job Shift: Office

Job Category:
Manufacturing

About us

Smalley is a global manufacturing leader of precision metal formed products—known for our Spirolox® retaining rings and Crest-to-Crest® wave springs—supporting customers across industries such as aerospace, automotive, medical, energy, robotics, and industrial machinery.

Why Smalley?

At Smalley, we cultivate an inclusive environment that values creativity, collaboration, and diverse perspectives. We also prioritize a positive onsite culture with team-building and engagement activities.

We offer

Competitive compensation and benefits package including Medical, Dental, Vision, 401(k) match, Life insurance, Tuition Reimbursement, PTO, and more—plus ongoing learning and development opportunities.

• Lead, develop, and manage the Manufacturing Engineering team and Packaging Engineer, including goal setting, coaching, performance management, workload prioritization, training, and succession planning.
• Promote a culture of safety, accountability, collaboration, documentation discipline, continuous learning, and data-based decision making.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on safety, quality, throughput, capacity, labor productivity, machine utilization, setup reduction, and manufacturing cost.
• Develop, optimize, and standardize manufacturing processes, tooling, setup methods, work instructions, and technical documentation to improve repeatability and reduce process variation.
• Ensure manufacturing drawings, routers, setup instructions, PFMEAs, control plans, process flow diagrams, and engineering changes accurately reflect production requirements and current practice.
• Lead capital equipment, automation, tooling, and facility improvement projects, including business justification, budgeting, specifications, RFQs, supplier coordination, installation, validation, commissioning, and results tracking.
• Partner with Manufacturing and Maintenance to improve overall equipment effectiveness, reduce downtime, increase equipment reliability, shorten setup time, and recover manufacturing capacity.
• Provide technical leadership for new product introductions, product and process transfers, manufacturability reviews, process development, production readiness, and customer-specific technical requirements.
• Lead structured problem solving, root cause analysis, corrective actions, SPC implementation, and process capability improvement to reduce scrap, rework, defects, and customer issues.
• Direct packaging engineering activities, including package design, material selection, product protection, shipping validation, labeling requirements, automation, standardization, and packaging cost reduction.
• Provide cross-functional technical leadership to Manufacturing, Quality, Maintenance, Production Control, Product Engineering, and Sales to resolve issues, manage risk, and implement sustainable improvements.
• Establish department goals, KPIs, project priorities, resource plans, and capital roadmaps aligned with Smalley’s business objectives and long-term manufacturing strategy.

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive manufacturing engineering experience, including experience leading engineers, technical teams, or major cross-functional projects.
• Demonstrated experience with metal forming, spring winding, precision manufacturing, tooling, automation, or comparable high-mix manufacturing processes.
• Experience with packaging engineering or automated packaging systems, including product protection, material selection, labeling, and shipping…