Customer Quality Engineer

PPG Industries, Inc; Oakwood (WI); On-site; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

PPG Industries, Inc is looking for a Customer Quality Engineer in Oakwood, Wisconsin. This role entails serving as the main quality liaison between customers and internal teams, ensuring customer quality issues are resolved effectively and maintaining compliance with quality standards.

Key responsibilities include managing customer claims, leading root cause analysis initiatives, and promoting the adherence to quality management systems. The ideal candidate will have a degree in engineering or quality and experience in customer quality or manufacturing.

Qualifications

• Experience in technical development or customer quality.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Comfort with driving cross-functional teams without direct authority.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer quality issue resolution and manage quality concerns.
• Conduct root cause analysis and ensure corrective actions.
• Serve as the primary contact for customer quality issues.

Skills

Problem-solving methodologies

Quality tools

Strong judgment and decision-making

Collaboration

Customer communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Quality

Job description

The Customer Quality Engineer (CQE) is responsible for ensuring customer quality requirements are met and for leading the resolution of customer quality issues across the product lifecycle. This role serves as the primary quality liaison between customers and internal cross‑functional teams, driving root cause analysis, corrective actions, and continuous improvement initiatives. The CQE plays a critical role in maintaining customer satisfaction, compliance with quality standards, and sustained product and process performance.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Customer Quality & Issue Management

• Lead customer quality issue resolution, including driving compliance to our QMS and utilization of ETQ and owning final response and closure of RCA.
• Manage customer claims, quality concerns and complaints by ensuring timely containment, RCA, PA verification, response and closure.
• Act as the escalation point for high‑severity or critical customer issues, internal or external, to support overall customer satisfaction.
• Ensure all customer‑specific requirements are clearly understood, documented, and integrated into internal processes and represent voice of customer for related MOC.
• Serve as the gatekeeper in Customer Feedback (ETQ) process, with authority to review, accept, prioritize, and close customer quality requests, including validation of root‑cause completion and effectiveness, authorize the implementation and verification of corrective action countermeasures, ensuring actions are effectively executed, validated, and sustained to resolve customer quality issues.

Root Cause Analysis & Corrective Action

• Lead structured problem‑solving activities using recognized methodologies or customer‑specific required methodologies (e.g., 8D, 5 Whys, Fishbone, Is Is Not).
• Coordinate cross‑functional teams to investigate internal and external non‑conformances.
• Ensure root causes are evidence‑based and corrective and preventative actions address systemic failure modes.
• Ensure corrective and preventive actions are implemented with the highest sense of urgency and focused to be robust, effective, and sustainably implemented, including for similar technologies or processes.
• In collaboration with the regional cluster quality leader, ensure that RCA findings are shared with applicable PPG sites for lesson learned to ensure risk of similar occurrence is properly addressed at other PPG locations.

Customer Communication & Relationship Management

• Serve as the primary point of contact for customer quality issues in the field and represents PPG professionally during customer reviews, meetings, and audits.
• Provide clear, timely, and professional communication regarding issue status, risks, and resolution plans to manage customer expectations during investigations, escalations, and recovery activities.
• Build and sustain collaborative working relationships with customer plant leadership as well as engineering organizations who support quality and production processes.
• Proactively identify potential quality risks and coordinate preventive actions aligned with the PPG plant quality management system.

Quality Systems, Standards & Audits

• Promote compliance with applicable quality management system requirements, including customer‑specific requirements (CSRs) and IATF standards and PPG internal standards (APQP, FMEA, LPA).
• Lead customer‑specific audits with support of QA manager for customers in escalation status.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to reduce complaint rates and improve overall quality performance using a data‑driven approach.
• Partner with Manufacturing, Process Engineering, Supply Chain, Sales, Planning, Technical Laboratories, and Customer Service teams to resolve issues and implement improvements to continuously improve customer satisfaction as reported on customer scorecards.
• Support packaging, handling, storage, logistics, and transportation quality initiatives as required.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Number and severity of customer complaints
• Repeat complaint rate
• Timeliness and effectiveness of root cause analysis and corrective actions
• Open and past‑due customer action items
• Customer satisfaction feedback and performance scorecards

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Quality, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in technical development, customer quality, manufacturing quality, or automotive engineering.
• Demonstrated knowledge of problem‑solving methodologies and quality tools.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast‑paced, customer‑focused environment.
• The person who will be successful in this role is comfortable driving cross‑functional teams without direct authority while creating an atmosphere of collaboration, respect, and continuous improvement.
• Strong judgment and decision‑making skills, with the ability to evaluate data, assess risk, and make sound, timely decisions in a customer‑facing environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Automotive industry and coatings experience.
• Working knowledge of IATF 16949.
• Experience supporting customer and third‑party audits.

Working Conditions & Travel

• Office and manufacturing floor environment.
• 10‑15% travel may be required to customer or supplier locations.

PPG tarjoaa tasavertaiset mahdollisuudet kaikille hakijoille ja työntekijöille. Tarjoamme mahdollisuuden kasvaa ja kehittää uraasi ympäristössä, joka tarjoaa työllä merkityksellisen paikan, luo jatkuvan oppimisen ilmapiirin ja arvostaa muiden ideoita ja monimuotoisuutta. Kaikki pattevut hakijat otetaan huomioon työnnottoprosessissa sukupuolesta, raskaudesta, rodusta, ihonvarista, vakaumuksesta, uskonnosta, kansallisuudesta, iasta, vammaisuudesta, siviilisadysta, veteraanitilasta, seksuaalisesta suuntautumisesta, sukupuoli‑identiteetistä tai -ilmaisusta riippumatta.