Senior Manufacturing Engineer – NPI

Overview

In this role you drive the end-to-end manufacturing engineering for new products, from concept through ramp-up to stable production. You own manufacturing readiness, process development and production release, coordinating cross-functional teams to meet safety, quality, delivery and cost targets. You translate design intent into robust, scalable processes and lead build readiness, trials and lessons learned. This is a hands-on, impact-driven role focused on delivering manufacturable products and ensuring smooth transition from development to production.

Responsibilities

• Lead the full NPI lifecycle from concept to ramp-up and production release.
• Create and maintain NPI manufacturing plans with clear deliverables, owners, milestones and acceptance criteria.
• Lead Design for Manufacture and Assembly reviews translating requirements into manufacturing solutions.
• Coordinate build readiness reviews, prototype/pilot builds, process prove-out, production trials and lessons learned.
• Define manufacturing process flows, routings, equipment, tooling, fixtures, test interfaces, and training needs.
• Ensure readiness before production release with documented processes, validated tooling and trained personnel.
• Own the transfer from development into production and maintain support until stability and performance criteria are met.
• Develop, validate and continuously improve robust, scalable manufacturing processes.
• Lead process characterization, verification and validation using objective data.
• Own and approve manufacturing documentation including SOPs, work instructions and BOMs.
• Lead complex root cause investigations and implement corrective actions.
• Define process controls, inspection points, KPIs and production targets.
• Drive yield, cycle time, throughput, scrap, rework and delivery improvements.
• Lead NPI/industrialisation projects from initiation to completion with proportionate project plans.
• Coordinate activities across functions and manage risks, issues and dependencies.
• Ensure governance with dashboards, RAID logs and status reporting.
• Provide manufacturing input to product changes, obsolescence and capacity decisions.
• Act as technical liaison with customers, suppliers and design authority on Manufacturing Engineering matters.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to Engineers and Technicians.
• Support capability development and knowledge transfer across the team.
• Maintain ownership while promoting ownership culture, quality and evidence-based decisions.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration and governance through reviews and status meetings.

Key requirements

• Significant manufacturing engineering experience in a production environment.
• Proven hands-on NPI and industrialisation experience from prototype to stable production.
• Experience developing and validating manufacturing processes, tooling and documentation.
• Strong experience with build readiness, production trials and ramp-up.
• Ability to interpret drawings, BOMs and product requirements.
• Experience leading root cause investigations and corrective actions.
• Experience planning and controlling engineering work with milestones, risks and dependencies.
• Able to coordinate cross-functional teams and suppliers to achieve outcomes.
• Able to maintain project dashboards, RAID logs and stakeholder reporting.

• Strong communication and influence
• Structured, data-driven planning
• Proactive and collaborative
• Manufacturing engineering in NPI/industrialisation
• Process development, validation and control
• Root cause analysis and corrective actions

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