Failure Analysis Lead — Automotive Quality & Returns

Molex; Rochester Hills (MI); On-site; USD 90,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

Koch companies seeks a supervisor for the Returns Center to lead safe, accurate, and timely intake, triage, testing coordination, and disposition of returned parts. You will maintain traceability, coordinate cross-functional teams, and drive evidence-based investigations.

In this role you will oversee escalation handling, performance metrics, and collaboration with Customer Quality, plant quality, and engineering to ensure compliance and continuous improvement across processes.

Qualifications

• 2+ years experience supervising or coordinating a technical, quality, warranty, laboratory, returns, repair, or manufacturing support operation.
• Automotive, electronics, electromechanical, or similarly controlled manufacturing experience.
• Working knowledge of structured problem solving and root-cause tools such as 8D, DMAIC, 5 Whys, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Own daily Parts Return Center (PRC) operations, including receipt, identification, system logging, labeling, segregation, storage, movement, and final disposition of returned parts.
• Maintain end-to-end traceability and detailed records for each return, including customer claim information, product identification, condition received, photographs, test data, repair or teardown findings, investigation status, and disposition evidence.
• Prioritize workload based on customer impact, safety or regulatory risk, production exposure, aging, response commitments, and escalation level.
• Assign and coordinate incoming work across technicians, engineers, laboratory resources, and subject matter experts; hold clear ownership and due dates.
• Coordinate bench-level testing, troubleshooting, teardown, disassembly, non-destructive inspection, and component-level analysis appropriate to the product and available capability.
• Ensure returned material is protected from damage, contamination, loss, commingling, or unauthorized disposition; maintain defined quarantine and controlled-access practices.
• Partner with Customer Quality and plant quality to support investigation reports, weekly status reviews, 8D deliverables, customer portal responses, and closure evidence.
• Initiate or support structured problem solving using 8D, DMAIC, 5 Whys, Shainin Red X, or other approved methods; ensure technical conclusions are evidence-based.
• Coordinate acquisition, analysis, and management of returned parts and warranty claim data with plant and corporate warranty stakeholders.
• Monitor investigation aging, response timeliness, repeat failures, no-trouble-found trends, containment status, and countermeasure validation; elevate barriers promptly.
• Lead routine operating reviews with Customer Quality, warranty, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, laboratory, and product/process SMEs.
• Ensure customer-specific requirements, product specifications, internal business processes, and applicable automotive quality standards are reflected in return-center controls.
• Support customer, quality-system, process, and internal audits by providing controlled records, data, traceability, and objective evidence of compliance.
• Develop team capability through standardized work, coaching, cross-training, lessons learned and documented best practices.
• Drive continuous improvement in flow, visual management, turnaround time, data quality, workplace organization, equipment readiness, and investigation effectiveness.

Skills

Team supervision

Quality and warranty

Root-cause analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Data-driven decisions

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field

Tools

SAP

MS Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

Koch companies seeks a supervisor for the Returns Center to lead safe, accurate, and timely intake, triage, testing coordination, and disposition of returned parts. You will maintain traceability, coordinate cross-functional teams, and drive evidence-based investigations.

In this role you will oversee escalation handling, performance metrics, and collaboration with Customer Quality, plant quality, and engineering to ensure compliance and continuous improvement across processes.