Supervisor, Laboratory Automation Service Engineering

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life‑changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 122,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

The Supervisor, Laboratory Automation Service Engineer plays a key leadership role in supporting a team of service engineers responsible for maintaining and optimizing laboratory automation. This position focuses on guiding daily operations, fostering team development, and ensuring that equipment service activities align with the needs of the laboratory. While primarily focused on team coordination and oversight, the Supervisor may also contribute hands‑on support for maintenance and repairs as needed, typically accounting for about 10% of their time.

• Lead and allocate daily tasks to service engineers supporting installation, calibration, adjustment, repair, and optimization of custom lab automation systems, ensuring high responsiveness and efficiency.
• Serve as the primary source of contact for service engineers, overseeing day‑to‑day service team functionality.
• Conduct routine check‑in meetings with each member of the team, as appropriate.
• Ensure ample coverage for day‑to‑day workload needs; recommending approval or rejection of requested time off.
• Supervise staff; including, but not limited to, organize and prioritize work, write/conduct performance reviews, train/develop, and manage work performance.
• Communicate goals clearly to employees to ensure understanding and success in achieving them.
• Motivate and inspire employees to do their best work through coaching.
• Maintain morale and support employee engagement initiatives.
• Provide technical guidance on automation technologies and control systems, ensuring reliable performance and alignment with operational requirements.
• Support enterprise service and integration leadership in the introduction and adoption of organizational initiatives.
• Work closely with integration and development teams on service requirements gathering and potential operational improvements.
• Promote customer satisfaction through problem solving, clear and effective communications, and efficient repair/maintenance activities.
• Develop and oversee service strategies for laboratory automation, including scheduled updates, large scale downtimes, and consistent evaluation of service procedures to ensure accuracy, efficiency, and alignment with operational goals.
• Advise sustaining engineering efforts by providing system data and service insights to improve system reliability, maintainability, and component lifecycle planning.
• Support hands‑on troubleshooting of interconnected automation components (robots, sensors, actuators, liquid handlers, etc.) and coordinate root‑cause analysis for recurring failures or control logic issues.
• Ensure the team follows all applicable documentation standards when servicing automated systems, including change control, deviation reports, relevant IQ/OQ/PQ, and applicable technical bulletins or notifications.
• Ensure all service documentation is complete, timely, and accurate following good documentation practices (GDP).
• Ensure appropriate tracking of all service activities utilizing systems developed in accordance with service policies and procedures.
• Support and comply with the company’s Quality Management System policies and procedures.
• Support training and development efforts for team members on evolving automation technologies, including new robotics platforms, machine vision, pipeline projects, and other skills essential for troubleshooting, optimizing, and supporting complex…