Technical Specialist - Packaging Support & Continuous Improvement

Total Marketing Support Limited; Lockerbie; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Discretionary bonus

Pension and life cover

Employee Assistance

Cycle to work

Employee discounts

Holiday entitlement

Job summary

DS Smith seeks a Cluster Technical Specialist to support multiple packaging sites across the UK, acting as the technical bridge between customers and manufacturing operations. You will provide expert guidance, lead investigations and drive continuous improvement while travelling to sites and maintaining high levels of customer confidence.

Join a newly created team and influence design-for-runnability, quality, and product performance through collaboration with Quality, Operations, Design, Sales

Qualifications

• Significant manufacturing experience, ideally in corrugated packaging.
• Strong operational, technical or quality background.
• Proven experience solving technical and process challenges.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Ability to influence teams and drive action without direct authority.
• Experience using structured problem-solving techniques such as 8D or RCA.
• Strong organisational and prioritisation skills.
• Full UK driving licence.

Responsibilities

• Act as the first technical point of contact for customer product performance, quality and manufacturing concerns.
• Conduct technical investigations and root cause analysis using structured methodologies such as 8D and RCA.
• Visit customer sites to identify and mitigate technical risks before they develop into customer complaints.
• Build trusted relationships with customer operations, engineering and quality teams.
• Deliver technical guidance and practical training to support customer packaging line performance.
• Support new product introductions and customer onboarding activities.
• Maintain accurate records of customer visits, actions, technical findings and risk assessments.
• Drive improvements in product consistency, quality and manufacturing performance.
• Lead and support customer trials.
• Identify trends, recurring issues and improvement opportunities across multiple sites.
• Provide design-for-runnability feedback to Design and Manufacturing teams.
• Work with external suppliers including tooling, print plate and form manufacturers to improve product performance.

Skills

Manufacturing experience

Corrugated packaging

Operational/Quality background

Stakeholder management

Influence without authority

Structured problem solving (8D/RCA)

Organisational skills

UK driving licence

Education

Degree in Engineering/Packaging/Manufacturing/Design

Tools

CRM

QMS

ERP

Job description

DS Smith seeks a Cluster Technical Specialist to support multiple packaging sites across the UK, acting as the technical bridge between customers and manufacturing operations. You will provide expert guidance, lead investigations and drive continuous improvement while travelling to sites and maintaining high levels of customer confidence.

Join a newly created team and influence design-for-runnability, quality, and product performance through collaboration with Quality, Operations, Design, Sales