Senior Quality Leader, Plant Start-up & ISO 9001

Vulcan Elements Inc.; North Dakota; On-site; USD 120,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

Vulcan Elements is expanding its quality leadership to ensure the Benson facility meets stringent automotive and aerospace standards. The Senior Manager, Quality will establish the plant Quality Management System, drive ISO 9001 certification, and build the analytical laboratory and production inspection capabilities from the ground up.

You will partner with R&D, pilot operations, and manufacturing to translate customer drawings into robust quality controls, drive PFMEAs, Control Plans, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Metallurgical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 10+ years in manufacturing quality, materials/metallurgical engineering, or manufacturing operations, with 5+ years in a leadership role.
• Experience in a materials-intensive and/or precision-parts manufacturing environment such as metals, powder metallurgy, automotive, aerospace, advanced materials, heat treatment, machining, or similar manufacturing.
• Experience spanning material/process quality and finished-part quality, including dimensional inspection, metrology, machining, or precision manufacturing.
• Experience developing and implementing PFMEAs, Control Plans, MSA, SPC/process capability, inspection plans, and corrective actions in a production environment.
• Experience with APQP/PPAP or comparable customer product and process qualification, including translation of drawings and specifications into manufacturing quality requirements.
• Experience establishing or significantly developing a manufacturing QMS and supporting or leading ISO 9001 or comparable certification.
• Strong customer-facing problem-solving and communication skills, including structured RCA/8D and resolution of manufacturing quality issues.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the Benson Quality organization, including quality engineering, laboratory, metrology/inspection, and supplier quality capabilities.
• Establish the plant Quality Management System and lead Benson through ISO 9001 certification, with systems scalable to automotive and aerospace customer requirements.
• Establish effective processes for nonconformance and product disposition, corrective action, traceability, calibration, audits, change control, and continuous improvement.
• Own the buildout and readiness of the Benson analytical laboratory and production inspection capability for product commissioning, qualification, and full-rate manufacturing.
• Define required laboratory and metrology equipment, technical requirements and acceptance criteria; partner with Procurement and Engineering to place equipment POs and manage vendors through installation, calibration, training, and acceptance.
• Partner with R&D and the pilot facility on analytical and test-method development, and own their validation, transfer, control, and implementation for commercial production.
• Lead the cross-functional development and release of process flows, PFMEAs, Control Plans, inspection/test plans, sampling strategies, MSA, and reaction plans for critical material, process, and finished-part characteristics.
• Serve as the Quality lead for pilot-to-commercial technology transfer, ensuring critical material attributes, process parameters, test methods, specifications, and lessons learned are incorporated into commercial manufacturing controls.
• Work closely with Commercial and customer teams to translate customer drawings, specifications, and qualification requirements into measurable manufacturing controls and acceptance criteria.
• Ensure manufacturing processes and measurement systems demonstrate appropriate capability before product release.
• Lead Quality deliverables for product and process qualification, APQP/PPAP, first article, safe launch, and customer-specific requirements as applicable.
• Provide Quality leadership through equipment commissioning, manufacturing readiness, startup, and production ramp.
• Own quality performance across incoming material, metallurgical processing, machining, coating, inspection, and finished-product release.
• Serve as the plant Quality focal point for manufacturing-related customer concerns and complaints, leading containment, characterization, root cause investigation, corrective action, and formal customer response.
• Ensure manufacturing issues are rigorously documented and that lessons learned are incorporated back into PFMEAs, Control Plans, specifications, and operating practices.
• Drive process capability, first-pass yield, defect reduction, supplier quality, customer PPM/escapes, and other key plant quality metrics.

Skills

Leadership

Problem-solving

Communication

Quality systems knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Metallurgical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or related technical discipline

Tools

PFMEA

MSA/SPC

ISO 9001

Job description

Vulcan Elements is expanding its quality leadership to ensure the Benson facility meets stringent automotive and aerospace standards. The Senior Manager, Quality will establish the plant Quality Management System, drive ISO 9001 certification, and build the analytical laboratory and production inspection capabilities from the ground up.

You will partner with R&D, pilot operations, and manufacturing to translate customer drawings into robust quality controls, drive PFMEAs, Control Plans, and