Manager, Supplier Engineering

Company Description

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.

We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.

The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.

If you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.

Job Description

Primary Function of Position:

Manage a team of Supplier Engineers with a focus on new product introduction for the Multiport business unit. The successful candidate will have the ability to lead a team, and understand and solve complex issues associated with the supplier manufacturing process, quality, and business inter-relationships. This person will apply manufacturing process knowledge and work alongside with design engineering and internal manufacturing engineering to drive supplier qualify and supplier qualifications to ensure successful product launch.

The preferred candidate possesses deep hands-on metal machining, metal injection molding, plastic injection molding and/or stamping manufacturing knowledge along with skills to select and develop suppliers. Good project management skills are necessary to work on multiple projects with cross-functional teams and suppliers.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Lead a team of supplier engineers in strategic supplier selection, evaluation, development, and improvement with the goal of establishing and maintaining a high-performing, long-term, sustainable production supply chain.

This is a working manager role which requires executing Supplier Engineering deliverables along with the team.

• Develop and implement a robust long-term supplier strategy for the product family.
• Select and evaluate suppliers that fit the supplier strategy and influence critical stakeholders to utilize and maximize the use of the Production supply base.
• Ensure suppliers are compliant with the Intuitive quality management system.
• Manage quality and lead the team in mitigating business risks and overcoming related challenges.
• Manage supplier relationships to partner with Intuitive and the supplier effectively.

• Support the team in completing the Production Part Qualification deliverables: pFMEA, Special Process Validations, FAI, and Process Capability Analysis
• Support transfer of parts and suppliers throughout the product development life cycle
• Manage the planning and implementation of supplier change management projects using the Supplier Change Request process (SCR).
• Develop and use measurement techniques for supplier part quality, capability, cost, capacity, and delivery by creating metrics to determine if an action is required.
• Identify and investigate opportunities for cost reduction and/or quality improvement by collecting opportunities and creating tactics to present opportunities, perform research, and provide data-driven plans to management.
• Drive the supply base to continually improve their business and manufacturing process performance to meet Intuitive’s requirements for supplier excellence using a collection of best practices in project management, Six Sigma, Lean, SPC, and negotiation.
• Led the team in solving complex process issues in the manufacture of components and assemblies.
• Facilitate, influence, and work cross-functionally to improve supplier engineering processes.

Qualifications

Skills, Experience, Education, & Training:

• Proven ability to lead teams to solve complex technical and process problems
• Proven ability to hire highly capable staff, and grow and mentor staff
• Proven ability in New Product Introduction and rapid scaling in production
• Outstanding analytical skills along with good judgment
• Proficient in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing techniques; certification preferred
• Proficient in pFMEA, process validation, route cause investigation, inspection, and test techniques
• Knowledge of document management systems and ERP Systems, preferably Ag