Senior Automation & Controls Engineer

Description

Springs Window Fashions is a leader in the custom window treatment industry since 1939. Headquartered in Middleton WI, we have 6,000 associates with locations in North America, Europe, and Asia.  Our custom window treatments are available under the Bali, Graber, SunSetter and Mecho brands in nearly every major retailer, in thousands of designer showrooms, and showcased in large commercial buildings.

 

Our company has made significant investments to become a leader in product innovation.  As North America’s premier window covering company, we’re committed to creating a “Best Experience” for our consumers, channel partners and associates.  We are bringing new innovations to the market at an accelerated pace and have a variety of offerings to consumers who want to improve their home décor.

 

Purpose:

Develop, implement & expand in-house capabilities for machine control and process automation/digitalization. Aligning with business strategies; improving customer experience related to quality performance & delivery, factory efficiency and enterprise Value Creation using Smart Technology.

 

Job Duties; Major Areas of Responsibility/tasks/duties:

• General
  • Interview internal customers at Manufacturing locations to gain insights on top opportunities to bring digital and automation solutions as value creation.
  • Develop solutions specifications, supporting business cases and alternatives to improve operational efficiencies.
  • Standardize and scale proven smart technology solutions across network.
  • Working with vendor-partners, creating new smart technology systems that are transformational competitive advantage.
  • Ensure artifacts are provided, stored, searchable that will allow support/maintenance by others
• Manufacturing Process Automation, specifically
  • Develop schematics, cabinet layout, PLC programs, SCADA interfaces, acceptance test criteria (create the RFQ and review the vendor RFPs)
  • Work with vendors to create systems (BOTH factory acceptance, on-site acceptance are expected)
  • Identify opportunities to bring portions of system development in-house
  • SCADA integration with local and corporate systems
  • Compliance with industry-standard practices (electrical power distribution, human interaction/safety), work closely with corporate and site Maintenance, Engineering, ESH leaders.
  • Working with local associate’s in Maintenance, ESH, Engineering departments to commission and transfer responsibility for operating and maintaining the system to the local team where possible
• Data Collection Automation/Digitalization, specifically
  • Be on the lookout for non-lean behavior (clipboards, white-boards, etc. that contain information that others will eventually transmit manually to other systems for historical display and storage)
  • Bring ideas to the team, participate in solution design, problem-solving, etc.
  • Create software tools in the SCADA layer to facilitate data collection, rapid problem-detection and problem-resolution

Scope of Responsibility:

• Network Footprint: SWF has many manufacturing, engineering/research/development sites.  This role is expected to travel as needed to the sites.  Likely to be 25% travel at a minumum, and could expand during implementation/adoption phases to 100%
• IT Ecosystem: There are several toolkits in use to manage the flow of information between end-users, planners, engineering, and manufacturing.  As we become more future-proof, the shop-floor systems will need to be upgraded and expanded.

 

Requirements

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering; Mechatronics may be considered
• 5+ years as an active lead machine designer; team members may be considered with more experience
• Familiarity with A3 9-step problem-solving or some other formal problem-solving methodology/toolkit
• Certifications: CSIA (or progress towards); Inductive Ignition Gold Certification (or progress)

Additional Experience:

• Application Development
• PLC 
• PowerAutomate and other workflow-management platforms to create tools that others will use to make their lives simpler 
• Inductive Ignition (Edge and Perspective, facility with Python is expected)
• MS SQL Server database (the database is professionally managed by others)
• Machine Building
  • Motors, actuators
  • Vision (2D)
• Near-term: classic standalone tools to perform tedious/repeatable/awkward tasks currently performed by associates
• Future: Cobots to tr