OpEx Principal Engineer

This is where you save and sustain lives

At Baxter, we are deeply connected by our mission. No matter your role at Baxter, your work makes a positive impact on people around the world. You’ll feel a sense of purpose throughout the organization, as we know our work improves outcomes for millions of patients. 

Baxter’s products and therapies are found in almost every hospital worldwide, in clinics and in the home. For over 85 years, we have pioneered significant medical innovations that transform healthcare.

Together, we create a place where we are happy, successful and inspire each other. This is where you can do your best work. 

Join us at the intersection of saving and sustaining lives— where your purpose accelerates our mission. 

Your role at Baxter

Baxter is on a mission to modernize our global manufacturing locations through the implementation of advanced automation and Industry 4.0 tools. These tools are designed to improve our operations’ productivity goals and enable manufacturing sites to be smarter and leaner.

The Principal Engineer is a critical role responsible for advancing and sustaining manufacturing for Baxter’s Round Lake manufacturing site.

The successful candidate will bring a track record of proven Lean/Sig Sigma successes, with strong capabilities within the following areas: exhibit a passion for automation/new technologies, possess exceptional customer engagement, strong program management skills, a passion for data, and a quest for continuous improvement.

Knowledge of various leading Industry 4.0 tools such as AI/ML, computer vision, autonomous vehicles, IoT platforms, cloud & edge computing, and related-emerging technologies is a focus area. The candidate will bring excitement and energy for innovation, and a passion for their work and the impact it has on saving and sustaining the lives of our patients. 

The candidate will be able to identify, scope, develop and implement Continuous Improvement projects that work to improve bottom-line performance and increase overall machine OEE. The candidate will become an expert in all areas of the manufacturing process from an engineering perspective and be comfortable learning new interface and applications to increase efficiency and improve uptime.

What you will be doing

• Partner with business, commercial, and IT leaders to drive progress for digital transformation initiatives.
• Lead and implement the Baxter Operating System and subsequent workshops/kaizen activities to improve operational mechanisms, controls, execution gaps, etc.
• Performing root cause analysis and implementing improvements and countermeasures to prevent recurrence.
• Strong partnership with regional teams and local stakeholders to advance/accelerate key strategic initiatives to create value at the manufacturing site.
• Drive benefit realization tracking and partner with manufacturing sites to accelerate commitments or address gaps to plan.
• Ability to execute to plans while effectively managing risks and opportunities while working with local stakeholders to ensure that we achieve the desired outcome by improving the correlated/identified KPI.
• With minimal guidance, schedules and leads a team through the planning and execution of initiatives. This includes constructing detailed, accurate project schedules, interfacing with R&D, Advanced Engineering, development groups and technical support groups.
• Ability to prioritize multiple tasks.
• Supervises/coordinates an engineer and/or technicians on assigned work.
• Sustain a clean and safe work area using 6S principles.
• Learn, understand, and apply rigorous quality standards, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP).
• Able to deal with suppliers challenging them on timelines and technical aspects.
• Able to plan activities and tasks as a part of the project management using dedicated management tools like MS Project, Project Libre or Excel.

What you will bring

• BS in Engineering / Computer Science.
•  3+ years of experience in leading complex projects in a global manufacturing organization.
• Solid understanding and demonstrated track record of using open-source programming tools such as Python, OpenCV, Tableau, Node-RED, etc. is highly desired.
• Experience with computer vision systems.
• Exposure to and understanding of AI models for computer vision applications.
• Exposure to and understanding of advanced robotics technologies such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), and collaborative robots.
• Exposure to and understanding of PLC programming and architecture such as All