Quality Engineer

Quality Engineer

Tekberry is seeking an experienced Quality Engineer to support our client, a world-class manufacturer of glass and optical products. This role is responsible for process engineering, extensive data-driven process qualification, and manufacturing optimization within a major optical fiber cable production facility. This role supports development, characterization, validation, control, and continuous improvement of cable manufacturing processes across high-volume operations. The engineer will lead or support qualifications of new products, equipment, materials, tooling, and process changes while using analytical methods to improve process capability, yield, throughput, and overall manufacturing performance.

This position requires significant experience in optical fiber cable manufacturing and a strong background in process engineering, data analytics, statistical analysis, and process qualifications. The engineer is expected to work independently on complex technical assignments, use manufacturing and quality data to drive decisions, and collaborate across Product Engineering, Operations, Quality, Reliability, Materials, and Equipment teams to ensure robust, scalable, and well-controlled production processes.

• Provide day-to-day and strategic process engineering support for optical fiber cable manufacturing operations, including areas such as loose tube, ribbon, buffering, SZ stranding, jacketing, armoring, printing, and final cable processing, as applicable.
• Develop, optimize, and sustain manufacturing processes to improve product quality, process capability, throughput, uptime, and cost performance.
• Define and maintain process windows, operating specifications, setup targets, and reaction plans for critical cable manufacturing steps.
• Support startup, scale-up, and line readiness activities for new cable constructions and process changes in a high-volume manufacturing environment.
• Evaluate interactions between materials, equipment, tooling, and operating conditions to ensure robust process performance.

• Lead or support qualification of new manufacturing processes, line modifications, equipment installations, tooling changes, alternate materials, and new product introductions.
• Develop and execute qualification plans, protocols, sample strategies, acceptance criteria, and final reports for engineering trials, process characterization, capability demonstrations, and process release.
• Apply structured qualification methods, including risk-based process validation, process capability analysis, and equipment/process readiness assessments.
• Ensure qualifications address both short-term performance and long-term production stability.
• Partner with Quality and Reliability teams to ensure qualification output aligns with product requirements, test methods, and customer or industry standards.

• Analyze large manufacturing, test, scrap, and quality datasets to identify process trends, variation drivers, chronic loss mechanisms, and improvement opportunities.
• Use statistical tools to evaluate process stability, centering, and capability, including control charts, Pareto analysis, regression, ANOVA, hypothesis testing, and capability indices.
• Support designed experiments and structured process characterization studies to determine critical process parameters and interactions.
• Develop technical data summaries, reports, and presentations to communicate findings and recommendations to engineering and operations leadership.
• Use data-driven methods to support qualification decisions, process troubleshooting, and continuous improvement initiatives.

• Investigate process deviations, product nonconformances, startup losses, yield issues, and customer-impacting defects associated with cable manufacturing processes.
• Lead or support root cause analysis using structured problem-solving methods and statistical evidence.
• Implement corrective and preventive actions to address issues such as dimensional variation, attenuation changes after cabling, excess fiber length instability, strip force variation, extrusion defects, adhesion problems, print defects, and mechanical handling damage.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on defect reduction, process robustness, waste reduction, OEE improvement, and manufacturing consistency.
• Support standardization of best-known methods across shifts, products, and production lines.

• Create and maintain controlled engineering documentation, including process flow diagrams, setup sheets, work instructions, SOPs, PFMEAs, control plans, qualification records, and change documentation.
• Support formal change control and determine requalification requirements for process, equipment, tooling, and material changes.
• Ensure process documentation accurately reflects current operating practices and qualified conditions.
• Participate in audit support and provide…