Timberland: Senior Manager, Quality

At Timberland, we’re a force of nature. We’re a team that steps outside, works hard together, and moves the world forward. The brand is widely recognized as the arbiter of boot culture. With a rich heritage of craftsmanship and an eye toward the future, Timberland has a decades-long commitment to make products responsibly, protect the outdoors, and build community.  

So, before we get to the job details, take a minute to learn a little more about us – our values and our culture. If you can see yourself working side-by-side with an team of fun, adventure-loving people, Timberland just may be the place for you.   

To learn more about our values and our culture, visit Timberland Careers or www.timberland.com. 

Sr. Manager, Quality – Timberland

What will you do? 

A day in the life of a Sr. Manager, Quality at Timberland looks a little like this. 

You will uphold the quality and brand standards, while exercising a thorough understanding of Quality Assurance protocols.  You will use data to identify and lead quality improvement initiatives. You will also serve as the first point of contact for all bulk production and market issues.  You are a leader and a brand ambassador; responsible for partnering directly with sourcing offices, vendors, product development, and cross functional departments across the business to quickly resolve and mitigate any quality concerns.

Partner with Product Development and technical teams to implement and execute new policies, procedures and standards to deliver high quality product and improve efficiency.  Help to employ metrics, analytics and KPIs to improve operations and optimize processes across the business process.  Play a critical role in a cross functional and diverse product environment.  Actively provide input on overall strategy formulation, demonstrating good business acumen that improves processes and delivers positive results. 

Let’s break down that day-in-the-life a bit more. 

Production Quality Issues & Customer Complaints:

• Responsible for all Timberland Product Globally: Footwear, Apparel, and Accessories

• Main point of contact between VF Quality Organization and Timberland.  Provide support from a Product Development perspective in terms of validating Consumer Complaints versus confirmation specs and shoes. Quantify deviations from Timberland’s Standards, and support the Product Developers as needed.

• Manage Investigations, Root Cause Analysis, and Corrective Action Plans on Issues raised by All regions.  This Quality Expert role will be the conduit between the Regions, Development, Testing, Engineering, Technical Development, Sourcing, and Global Quality to provide root cause analysis for the PD and/or Production teams.

 Development Quality / Production Alignment:

• Sit in ISR/FSR Initial & Final Season Review) Tear Down meetings with development and engineering to have full visibility of the line and determine Critical Points of Attention to address with the production teams. Handle creating acceptable ranges of production variation for sign off with Development and Engineering.  Facilitate clear standards, working with Sourcing, T1 and T2 factories, and Raw Material Quality Teams on determining clear guidance on acceptability.   Add clarity to ambiguous situations and product variation.  Example: The nature of Timberland product (natural leather) leads to situations where answers to quality issues are not always black and white.

• Lead and manage the End-to-End NPI (New Product Introduction) Risk based program for Timberland, designed to identify high risk products and evaluate the areas of importance to be audited. 

• Closely monitor collab launches from Development to Commercialization, to Production and Consumer Feedback.  Partner with Global Quality Management to ensure these programs are included in our Risk-Based system, with a heightened focus from end to end.  Member of the Collab PD Team from start of Development to Consumer Feedback. 

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