Industrialisation Lead for Spaceplane Manufacturing

Dawn Aerospace; Christchurch; Hybrid; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Dawn Aerospace is building the Aurora, a reusable rocket-powered spaceplane designed to make access to space as routine as aviation. We are seeking an experienced industrialization visionary to lead the transformation of manufacturing vision, systems, and processes to scale production.

This senior role collaborates across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and leadership to ensure manufacturability, quality, and delivery.

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent.
• 5+ years transitioning complex engineering orgs/products from R&D to production.
• Experience scaling manufacturing from prototype to repeatable production.
• Strong understanding of aerospace or other highly regulated environments.
• Experience developing production systems and industrialisation roadmaps.
• Lean Manufacturing, DFMA, Value Stream Mapping, and continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication skills with influence across teams and leadership.
• Comfortable in fast-moving environments with evolving systems.
• Strong systems thinking; ability to simplify complex manufacturing challenges.
• Practical mindset with bias toward execution.

Responsibilities

• Develop the long-term production strategy to manufacture multiple spaceplanes yearly.
• Define the production operating model for the transition from R&D to production.
• Design and implement scalable manufacturing processes.
• Work closely with design engineers to improve manufacturability and production efficiency.
• Identify production bottlenecks and develop strategies to remove constraints.
• Improve manufacturing data collection to enable data-driven decisions.
• Establish production planning methodologies and scheduling processes.
• Collaborate with Supply Chain to ensure manufacturing readiness and supplier capability.
• Drive organisational alignment around transition from prototype thinking to production thinking.
• Build a culture focused on standardisation, repeatability, and operational excellence.
• Define manufacturing documentation standards, production travellers, work instructions, and visual management systems.
• Help engineering teams understand DFMA principles.

Skills

Lean Manufacturing

DFMA

Value Stream Mapping

Production Systems

Industrialisation

Systems Thinking

Change Management

Aerospace

Communication

Education

Bachelor degree Mechanical engineering or equivalent

Job description

Dawn Aerospace is building the Aurora, a reusable rocket-powered spaceplane designed to make access to space as routine as aviation. We are seeking an experienced industrialization visionary to lead the transformation of manufacturing vision, systems, and processes to scale production.

This senior role collaborates across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and leadership to ensure manufacturability, quality, and delivery.