Senior Manager, Advanced Process & Materials
Work Mode: Onsite
Location: Onsite, four days a week - Kohler, WI
Opportunity
The Senior Manager – Advanced Process & Materials leads the development, industrialization, and enterprise deployment of advanced manufacturing processes and materials technologies that measurably improve quality, cost, yield, scalability, and sustainability across Kohler. This role bridges technology development and operational execution, ensuring innovations are standardized, production‑ready, and transferable across plants and regions. The Senior Manager builds high‑performing technical teams and partners closely with Operations, NPI, Product Engineering, Quality, Sourcing, and Suppliers to deliver step‑change results.
Key Responsibilities:
Process & Materials Strategy
- Own and execute a multi‑year roadmap for advanced processes and materials aligned to enterprise cost, quality, and sustainability objectives.
- Translate business and NPI demand into prioritized technical programs with clear value cases, milestones, and success metrics.
- Support enterprise governance through disciplined stage‑gates, risk retirement, and readiness criteria for scale deployment.
Advanced Materials & Formulation Leadership
- Lead qualification, optimization, and deployment of polymers, formulations, metals, finishes, and surface technologies to improve performance and reduce total cost.
- Drive material substitutions, process windows, and standard “winning recipes” to enable repeatable multi‑site manufacturing.
- Ensure regulatory, compliance, and durability readiness for global industrialization.
Advanced Manufacturing Process Innovation
- Develop and industrialize advanced manufacturing processes (e.g., molding, forming, finishing, coating, joining, additive prototypes) that improve productivity, yield, and quality.
- Lead pilots, DOE, capability studies, and scale‑up trials with clear handoff criteria to Operations and NPI.
- Standardize technologies, documentation, and training to ensure sustainable adoption beyond initial deployment.
Enterprise Deployment & Integration
- Partner with plant and regional engineering teams to deploy platforms globally, resolve startup issues, and ensure stable production performance.
- Serve as escalation leader for complex materials‑ or process‑related failures affecting quality, cost, or delivery.
- Enable effective knowledge transfer, training, and ownership transition to Ops and NPI teams.
People Leadership & Capability Building
- Lead, develop, and mentor a team of process and materials engineers; build bench strength and future technical leaders.
- Set clear expectations, manage performance, and foster a culture of accountability, rigor, and continuous improvement.
- Contribute to enterprise succession planning and technical talent strategy.
Skills/Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).
- 10+ years of progressive experience in advanced manufacturing processes and/or materials engineering within complex industrial environments.
Expertise in advanced manufacturing processes and materials, including polymers/formulations, metals, coatings, finishes, and surface technologies in high‑volume production.
- Proven success industrializing and scaling new materials and processes from pilot through multi‑site manufacturing with stable cost, quality, and yield.
- Strong capability in process development, optimization, and control, including process windows, specifications, and standard work.
- Advanced data‑driven problem solving (DOE, SPC, Six Sigma, capability analysis, root cause) applied to complex materials‑process interactions.
- Demonstrated experience transferring technologies across plants/regions, including