COE Technical Manager

Description

For over a century, American Packaging Corporation (APC) has been a leading flexible packaging converter for customers throughout North America. We nurture our employees by providing competitive salaries, excellent benefits, 401(k) plans and tuition reimbursement programs. These are just a few reasons why we were named a “Best of the Best” in the Best Workplaces in the Americas awards for 12 years in a row. APC’s longstanding success is fueled from the inside out, and we consistently seek to improve our internal operations to propel that success into the future.

SUMMARY: A Technical position reporting to the Director of Operations. Primary responsibility is to lead the Center of Excellence (COE) Technical Team while participating in new product development activity, supporting manufacturing and quality relative to technical needs, and supporting the COE needs for production, planning, and continuous improvement. Additionally, this role will collaborate with technical resources outside the COE regarding new business opportunities (NBO) activity, specification development, and material development initiatives. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

• Manage the COE Technical Team of Technical Specialist(s), Application Engineer(s), and Product Development Engineer(s).
• Respond to COE specific needs regarding NBO activity, manufacturing and quality support, budgeting, and continuous improvement.
• Material and process research regarding technologies that match the COEs capabilities or initiatives.
• Collaborate with external technical resources on NBO activity, specification development, and material development initiatives.
• Ensure the COE has all the necessary information, specifications, and knowledge to meet customer expectations.
• Product Development, Customer interface, presentations, and primary responsibility for technical support of assigned accounts. 
• Participate in customer visits to the facilities.
• Apply regulatory evaluations pertaining to packaging food safety.
• Maintain an updated file on finished roll stock, pouch, die-lines, third party, perforation, and other required specifications as well as the particular inspection/testing procedures associated with each product.
• Maintain an updated specification files on all raw materials (papers, films, inks, adhesives, etc.) used in their respective production process. 
• Prepare and manage in-plant technical trials through conducting pre-trial planning meetings, directing on-line manufacture of trial materials, documenting results of trials and ensuring trial results are met. 
• Research and qualify new alternative materials. 
• Participate in COE leadership team. 
• Interacting with customers, management, marketing, sales, and suppliers. 
• Participate in training, embrace concepts of and actively practice SPOT Safety Program fundamentals to aid APC’s efforts to achieve a zero accident rate.
• Attend and participate in all company mandated meetings. 
• Business travel required. 
• Other duties as assigned

Requirements

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) in a Technical Field (Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, etc.) from a four-year college or university; or equivalent combination of education and experience. Experience with printing and laminations for flexible packaging using materials such as papers, films, foils and sealants is desired.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the public. Skillful in presentation skills both preparation and delivery is preferred. 

MATHEMATICAL SKILLS

Ability to apply mathematical operations to such tasks as frequency distribution, determination of test reliability and validity, analysis of variance, correlation techniques, sampling theory, and factor analysis.

REASONING ABILITY

Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situatio