Material Development Engineer

Over 35 years ago, First Quality is a family-owned company that has grown from a small business in McElhattan, Pennsylvania into a group of companies, employing over 5,000 team members, while maintaining our family values and entrepreneurial spirit. With corporate offices in New York and Pennsylvania and 8 manufacturing campuses across the U.S. and Canada, the companies within the First Quality group produce high-quality personal care and household products for large retailers and healthcare organizations.

Our personal care and household product portfolio includes baby diapers, wipes, feminine pads, paper towels, bath tissue, adult incontinence products, laundry detergents, fabric finishers, and dishwash solutions. In addition, we manufacture certain raw materials and components used in the manufacturing of these products, including flexible print and packaging solutions.

Guided by our values of humility, unity, and integrity, we leverage advanced technology and innovation to drive growth and create new opportunities. At First Quality, you’ll find a collaborative environment focused on continuous learning, professional development, and our mission to Make Things Better®.

We are seeking an experienced Material Development Engineer for our First Quality Products facility located in McElhattan, PA.

The purpose of the Material Development/Materials Process Engineer position is to lead material development and the material cost innovation work process while ensuring consistent material quality, supply and material processability on our lines for our absorbent hygiene products. This individual will lead some material innovation activities and work with & provide technical expertise for continuous improvement activities of the process teams for new and existing products within the business unit.

This role will work in collaboration with each facility’s process Engineers, operations, Quality Engineers and Product Developers in addition to working with our external supply partners. This individual will lead both internal and external trials in specific material categories.

Principal Accountabilities/ Responsibilities:

• Promotes a safety culture, embracing safety as a core value, instilling and exemplifying a safety mindset for all team members resulting in an incident free workplace.
• Works in conjunction with Quality department to ensure consistent raw material quality and that finished product satisfies all finished product quality standards.
• Work closely with suppliers, external partners and internal team members including quality and process team members to define material needs and create/refine/review raw material specifications.
• Work closely with both production and process team members to ensure good material processability on our converting lines.
• Support funding the growth activities related to materials for the Absorbent Hygiene business.
• Investigate new material and relevant technologies and collaborate with PD team members to continuously improve our absorbent hygiene products.
• Develops deeper material understanding for some of the material categories such as non-wovens, films, pulp, sap, adhesives, elastics and laminates etc.,
• Develops Intellectual proprietary (IP) where applicable to establish competitive advantage, and ensure FTP for performance and cost innovative materials
• Assists in planning, conducting, analyzing, and interpreting technical services.
• Responsible for project planning and execution on commercial and pilot line trials.
• Responsible for evaluating analytical data including material characterization and relaying the information to non-technical personnel.
• Responsible for organizing Material Development pipeline and raw material qualifications.
• Always maintains a high level of professionalism.
• 25% travel domestic and internationally.

Education and experience requirements:

• Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering/ Polymers/ Materials Science or Mechanical Engineering preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years in Project or Process Engineering experience.
• Minimum of 5 years in industrial experience.
• Minimum of 2-5 years Material Development/Process experience.
• Experience in a lean manufacturing environment…