Director, Manufacturing Excellence

The Director of Manufacturing Excellence & reliability is responsible for defining and executing the manufacturing excellence, quality, and reliability strategy for utility-scale power electronics products produced through contract manufacturing partners. This role provides strategic and organizational leadership across Manufacturing Excellence, Quality & Supplier Excellence, and Reliability & Product Integrity, translating business objectives into functional strategies, operating plans, organizational priorities, and measurable results.

The Director will lead multidisciplinary engineering teams and partner closely with senior leaders across Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Product, Service, and other functions to ensure products consistently achieve safety, quality, performance, cost, manufacturability, and reliability objectives throughout the product lifecycle. This leader will also serve as a senior representative of the organization with contract manufacturers, strategic suppliers, and customers, including executive business reviews, customer audits, factory acceptance activities, technical reviews, and other engagements involving matters of significance to the business.

Define and execute the long-term Manufacturing Excellence and Reliability strategy aligned with company and business objectives.

Translate broader business strategy into functional priorities, annual operating plans, objectives, and key results (OKRs).

Establish organizational policies, standards, governance models, methods, and performance expectations across manufacturing excellence, quality, and reliability.

Lead, develop, and mentor multidisciplinary engineering teams, building organizational capability and a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.

Partner with senior management to establish priorities, resolve complex cross-functional issues, and drive decisions with significant operational and business impact.

Establish and monitor executive-level KPIs to measure manufacturing performance, quality, reliability, supplier performance, and continuous improvement.

Establish manufacturing readiness requirements, governance, and evaluation criteria for new products, manufacturing processes, and production ramps.

Provide functional approval and leadership oversight for production readiness and manufacturing risk.

Ensure manufacturing processes demonstrate appropriate capability, control, scalability, and repeatability prior to and throughout production.

Sponsor automation, process optimization, Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement initiatives across internal and contract manufacturing operations.

Drive cross-functional resolution of complex manufacturing challenges involving Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Operations, and contract manufacturing partners.

Establish methods and standards that improve manufacturing performance, scalability, cost, and operational effectiveness.

Own the strategic direction and performance framework for supplier and contract manufacturer quality.

Establish quality expectations, governance mechanisms, escalation processes, and performance standards for strategic manufacturing partners.

Lead executive-level supplier and contract manufacturer business and quality reviews, including negotiation and resolution of significant quality and operational matters.

Ensure robust quality management systems, corrective and preventive action (CAPA), root-cause analysis, and systemic corrective actions are implemented and sustained.

Drive supplier capability improvement and ensure manufacturing partners consistently meet business, customer, and product requirements.

Reconcile competing stakeholder priorities and drive decisions that protect product quality, customer commitments, and long-term business objectives.

Define and lead the product reliability and product integrity strategy across the product lifecycle.

Establish reliability objectives, qualification requirements, validation standards, and performance criteria in partnership with Engineering and Product organizations.

Provide leadership oversight of product qualification programs and ensure reliability risks are identified, understood, and addressed prior to production release.

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