Sr. Supplier Engineer, Future Forward

Sr. Supplier Engineer, Future Forward

At Intuitive, we are united behind our mission: we believe that minimally invasive care is life-enhancing care. Through ingenuity and intelligent technology, we expand the potential of physicians to heal without constraints.

As a pioneer and market leader in robotic-assisted surgery, we strive to foster an inclusive and diverse team, committed to making a difference. For more than 25 years, we have worked with hospitals and care teams around the world to help solve some of healthcare's hardest challenges and advance what is possible.

Intuitive has been built by the efforts of great people from diverse backgrounds. We believe great ideas can come from anywhere. We strive to foster an inclusive culture built around diversity of thought and mutual respect. We lead with inclusion and empower our team members to do their best work as their most authentic selves.

Passionate people who want to make a difference drive our culture. Our team members are grounded in integrity, have a strong capacity to learn, the energy to get things done, and bring diverse, real world experiences to help us think in new ways. We actively invest in our team members to support their long-term growth so they can continue to advance our mission and achieve their highest potential.

Join a team committed to taking big leaps forward for a global community of healthcare professionals and their patients. Together, let's advance the world of minimally invasive care.

Job Description

Primary Function of Position

Lead Supplier Engineer on a design project. Responsible to influence the design architecture, component specifications, and component manufacturing process based on supplier capabilities. Responsible for DFM, cost modeling, commodity knowledge, to support supplier selection and BOM cost targets. Responsible for qualification of all components and launch plan. Post launch, responsible to drive suppliers to continuously improve business and manufacturing processes.

Essential Job Duties

• Partner with design engineering to understand the design intent and how it translates to component design. Ensure critical design outputs are clearly documented and measurable on the component specification.
• Collaborate with Quality Engineering and Design Engineering to support dFMEA reviews and confirm the feasibility of various design risk mitigations.
• Influence and drive changes to Intuitive component specifications to ensure a robust component manufacturing process that can scale.
• Work with design engineering to develop test methods and acceptance criteria for the supplied part or sub-assembly. Document functional test methods used to verify the product and translate those tests to component level testing.
• Influence Engineering team to select the component technology that will meet requirements for short- and long-term needs from prototype to production, but also meet business objectives for cost and utilizing preferred suppliers.
• Create strategies to effectively optimize the supply base to reduce the risk of complex sub-tiers suppliers and long lead times.
• Determine risk mitigations for high severity parts, sole suppliers or proprietary materials.
• Complete Design Transfer and component qualification: pFMEA, Special Process Validations, FAI, correlation and Cpk by leading, training and mentoring suppliers through the process.
• Develop supplier ramp readiness plans by judging business risk based on forecast, supplier capacity, quality performance, and process capability.
• Review, analyze and close customer complaints, manufacturing variance requests, and first article inspections by judging risk analyses and justifications, determining corrective and preventive actions at suppliers, looks for opportunities with suppliers to eliminate recurrence.
• Drive corrective actions for supplier process by driving suppliers to true root cause analysis and corrective and preventive actions.
• Develop and influence using metrics for supplier part cost, delivery, quality, capacity and capability by creating metrics to measure real improvement and judge required intervention or change at the supplier or in a commodity.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Experience

• Proven ability to work alongside design engineer and assess supplier capability during the design iteration process
• Demonstrable knowledge in evaluating and challenging supplier technical, quality, and business capabilities
• Demonstrable knowledge of a wide range of manufacturing processes including understanding of key input variables for quality, cost and capacity (specialization can be in metal fabrication, plastics, electronics, and/or contract manufacturing)
• A proven history of implementing Lean/6 Sigma/SPC Programs at suppliers
• Excellent Project Management skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills including presentations to executive level management
• Excellent Interpersonal skills and team building skills
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills along with good judgment
• Excellent knowledge of 21 CFR part 820 and ISO 13485 (experience in auditing suppliers to these standards)
• Significant computer experience using Windows, Word, Excel, Access and ERP Information Systems, preferably SAP
• Ability to read and interpret detailed mechanical drawings and communicate technical information

Required Education and Training

• BS degree in Engineering or equivalent.
• Minimum 8 years related experience in Supplier Quality Engineering and/or Supplier Development or related field.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience with GD&T, tolerance stack and CAD experience with 3D modeling tools is a plus