Job Description Summary

Job Description

Job Description

The Lead Engineer in Mechanical Structures Global Fleet Engineering team will be an RCA Leader owning assigned RCAs related to Rotor (Hub, Pitch Bearing), Towers and critical bolted joints of Onshore & Offshore fleet.

The RCA leader’s prime responsibility will be to drive root cause identification, containment of the issue, corrective action development and support the implementation of systematic improvements for the most prevalent issues across the Global Wind Fleet. This role can be viewed as a "wing-to-wing" owner where the Mechanical Structures RCA Leader will achieve this by partnering with different functions such as Design Engineering, Sourcing, Parts, Services, Warranty and Global Fleet Performance Team (FPM), and by using key root cause principles and disciplines such as Lean, 8D, Shainin and Six Sigma. The Lead Mechanical Structures RCA Leader will also work on escalated issues, product safety concerns, cost avoidance and cost of quality reduction.

Additionally, the Mechanical Structures RCA Leader will partner with FPM teams on emerging issues to facilitate faster issue resolution minimizing the impact of owned RCA’s ensuring that, once immediate containment actions are taken, and corrective actions developed, capture, prevent recurrence, and continuously learn, from our quality issues; this will be inclusive of partnering with all upstream organizations to prevent recurrence of customer issues.

Roles & Responsibilities

• Own assigned RCA from a technical & process perspective with cross-functional teams to drive root cause analysis to achieve timely and robust issue resolution, addressing emerging issues and reducing MCU for all Machinery structures components other than Machine Head.
• Support escalated PAC cases, while owning the general disposition for RCA related PAC cases.
• Support RCA related SAFER Actions, while owning the definition of a potential general approach to reduce unnecessary re-work for future potential similar cases (i.e. identifying reference case). 
• Develop effective relationships with the Fleet Performance, NPI Engineering, Field, Sourcing, Parts, and Quality teams along with other resources in Customer Solutions to foster the best solutions to our fleet problems.
• Assist in driving cross-team initiatives and mentoring of junior team members.
• Manage the cost of quality for our business as it relates to implementing solutions for field quality issues.
• Partners with Sourcing on vendor recovery of supplier-caused defects.
• Support commercial and technical discussions with our suppliers to achieve field quality issue resolution.
• Provide clear and consistent communications for internal and external Customers.
• Provide regular updates on RCA progress and related action plan in Quality Suite (RCA reporting platform).
• Identifies and secures the roles and functions required as part of the RCA team, escalating when required.
• Owns the definition of the RCA necessary budget for PO’s and cost/benefit impact evaluation, owning the PO workflow related process to get approvals and issue the necessary POs along the RCA.
• Maintain thorough and well-organized documentation of the RCA within Fleet Engineering folder.
• Owns the RCA report, providing regular updates to senior leadership as needed.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s (preferred) degree in Mechanical engineering or relevant technical discipline from an accredited institution.
• Minimum of 5 years of prior relevant work experience, preferably in the wind industry.

Desired Characteristics

• Detailed understanding of the product development cycle.
• Detailed understanding of the 8D problem solving process.
• Positive, resourceful, clear and strategic thinking problem solver mindset. Able to think outside of the box to bring creative, sustainable solutions to complex scenarios.
• Proven RCA technical expertise and project closure.
• Prior background on wind turbine equipment’s and systems, especially on bolted joints, tower structure, tower internals, pitch bearings and mechanical structures like the hub.
• Technical Versatility and ability to learn technology outside of one's specialty.
• Ability and willingness to travel 10% of the time.
• Ability and willingness to climb a wind turbine.
• Root Cause Analysis Training or Certification (8-D, Apollo, Shainin or similar).
• Statistically literate and familiar with quality concepts and tools (Six-sigma BB, Lean, etc.).
• Strong problem-solving skills.
• Product reliability mindset.
• Strong field and customer mind-set. Experience with internal and/or external customer communications, particularly with product quality topics like RCAs.
• Prior team management experience (either direct report or indirect reports), with influential leadership experience with credibility, the ability to partner, energize and focus teams to deliver on priorities.
• Self-starter, with personal ownership and accountability.
• Ability to understand business processes, issues, and concerns and translate into solutions.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, multi-cultural environment with cross-functional teams.

Additional Information