Customer Liaison

Who We Are:
Challenge Manufacturing’s mission is to manufacture with operational excellence by empowering our employee-owners. As a leading tier 1 supplier of complex metal assemblies for the global automotive industry, we drive innovative solutions for future mobility. We believe the best ideas come from individual unique perspectives. These ideas combined with the teamwork of industry leaders allow us to accomplish any challenge. Our team members take pride in the work we do and embody our core values of safety, ownership, and teamwork every day; they are the true driving force in our operations.

Challenge is proud to be one of the largest employee-owned automotive companies in North America. One of the many benefits of joining the Challenge team is the ESOP program. This program allows Challenge to give shares of the Company to all employee-owners annually. These shares are an additional retirement benefit that will continue to grow during your time at Challenge. Being part of an ESOP means our employee-owners share in Challenge’s success!

Challenge is #QualityDriven and #PeoplePowered!

Who We Want:

We are looking for a proactive and customer-focused professional to serve as a key point of contact between our customers and Challenge Manufacturing. As a Customer Liaison, you will be responsible for building strong relationships with our customers and ensuring their expectations, concerns, and feedback are clearly communicated to the appropriate plant teams. You will act as the voice of the customer within our organization, working closely with internal stakeholders—especially within quality—to drive continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

What You'll Do:

• Understand how Challenge products impact customer vehicles and build metrics
• Know where, in the assembly plant, our parts are introduced into the vehicle
• Know how our parts interface with others in the vehicle to understand important build criteria
• Interact with customer personnel frequently to demonstrate customer care/interest and to promote teamwork and cooperation for the common good
• Determine the key customer personnel that are involved with the utilization of Challenge parts, and understand their individual roles with respect to our performance
• Maintain strong communication flows that facilitate awareness of build issues as they arise
• Introduce key customer personnel to Challenge Quality Managers and Engineers, and enhance their relationships
• Visualize the condition first-hand to ensure obtaining appropriate problem definition
• Demonstrate a sense of urgency for addressing customer concerns
• Earn customer’s trust by providing fast response and committing to timely countermeasure feedback
• Communicate customer build issues to both Corporate and Operations personnel
• Make sure that Quality, Engineering, and Management personnel are made aware of the customer concern and expectations, and provide an understanding of how the issue is impacting them
• Distribute Customer Contact Report on a weekly basis
• Provide a more detailed understanding of the problem with those Challenge persons assigned to address the issue
• Support problem resolution efforts
• Follow up to verify that the issue is placed on the Fast Response Board to ensure it doesn’t fall through the cracks
• Follow up to obtain resolution status information for customer feedback
• Collect and help analyze quality data, as required
• Review the manufacturing process, checking, error-proofing initiatives driven by the issue to help confirm that they are both thorough and effective
• On-site Support requirements
• Follow up with Customer plant personnel on open issues
• Maintain a good working relationship while a guest in the customers facility
• Perform any line side sorting as necessary to keep the customer running.
• Provide daily detailed communication back to CMC Corporate and Plant management teams.
• Assist the customer in any root cause analysis and corrective action as it relates to CMC product
• Interpret technical information such as part drawings, build criteria, and assembly flow.
• Understand the physical and functional integration of Challenge components in the customer's vehicle.
• Recognize and analyze Quality issues related to fit, alignment, torque, material behavior, and part performance.
• Visually assess part installations and identify potential build issues on-site.
• Work closely with engineering and quality teams to support root cause analysis and corrective action from an engineering and process flow informed perspective.
• Provide hands-on support when necessary, including basic inspection, measurement, or line-sid