Senior Project Engineer/ Project Engineer

LGI foundation; Ankeny (IA); On-site; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

LGI foundation in Ankeny, Iowa is seeking an engineer with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering or related field and a strong background in process control. The role involves optimizing manufacturing processes, leading projects, and ensuring quality and delivery improvements.

The ideal candidate will have more than 5 years of experience in a manufacturing environment, with a specialization in food safety and project management. This position includes approximately 25% domestic travel and offers opportunities to work with cutting-edge technologies.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a manufacturing environment, understanding process control.
• Experience in Food, Agriculture, Dairy, BioProcessing or similar industries.
• Willingness to travel approximately 25% domestically.

Responsibilities

• Identify opportunities for quality, cost, and delivery improvement.
• Develop solutions to optimize Operations performance metrics.
• Lead plant and supplier trials for new technologies.

Skills

Process troubleshooting

Cost determination

Project management

Statistical analysis

Excellent communication

Microsoft Excel expertise

Food safety knowledge

Education

Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Food Science, Food Technology, Chemistry

Job description

Job Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Food Science, Food Technology, Chemistry, or related field.
• Experience: Bachelor’s degree with 5 or more years of experience in a manufacturing environment with an understanding of process control and development is required, or 5 to 8 years of relevant professional experience.
• Working knowledge of food or feed industry, food safety, and GMP is preferred.
• Process troubleshooting, designing and implementing new processes.
• Experience in Food, Agriculture, Dairy, BioProcessing or other process intensive industries.
• Previous Project Management or leadership experience.
• Experience with controls (PLC’s, DCS integration) at the very least control narrative documentation.

Job Duties

• Identify opportunities for quality, cost, and delivery improvement.
• Develop solutions to mitigate issues and optimize Operations performance metrics.
• Utilize tools such as 8D problem solving, design of experiments, to understand critical input variables that affect process performance and identify viable changes, modifications, and improvements to reduce variation.
• Work with supervisors, managers, and employees to deploy improvement solutions, including procedural changes, line and equipment modifications, and SOP revisions, that are sustainable and consistent throughout all manufacturing facilities.
• Serve as a technical resource for applied statistics, process assessment techniques, cost determination, project planning, and control plan implementation and assist with engineering savings impact calculations.
• Lead plant and supplier trials in cooperation with Operations, Quality and R&D to access new technologies and processes.
• Design and implement methods for process control, process improvement, testing, and inspection.
• Develop a deep technical knowledge of key APC processes such as drying, membranes, separation, and fractionation.
• Document and share this knowledge in a sustainable way.
• Understand APC processes globally and assist as needed in unifying best in class processes.
• Assist Engineering Manager in special projects as assigned.
• Willingness to travel and spend time in the processes at our manufacturing plants, on both day, weekends, and off-shifts as required.
• Coordinate with R&D personnel for use of the lab and pilot plant as needed.
• Write Capital expense requests, coordinate equipment ordering and supervise project work to ensure approved requests are completed within budget.

Job Requirements

• Comprehensive knowledge of process development tools and capability to statistically analyze complex manufacturing processes.
• Ability to design new processes and optimize existing manufacturing processes.
• Strong analytical skills to interpret data to make decisions.
• Above average skills in Microsoft Excel.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Approximately 25% domestic travel.

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