As a Molding Design & Development Specialist, you will be a staff level subject matter expert responsible for making critical recommendations and decisions on all molded and overmolded components and assemblies for sensors that will serve the Automotive and Industrial & Commercial Transportation (ICT) markets.

The Molding Design & Development Specialist will lead the design and development of optimized molded and/or overmolded components and assemblies and work in close concert with NPI development teams, modeling & simulation engineers, Supply Chain partners, internal and external tooling and molding vendors and customers.

The ideal candidate would be a former Molding Engineer that has 15+ years of experience, has a long proven track record of developing sensors for automotive applications and also possesses knowledge and IP of how to overmold sensitive electronics and surface mount components to product robust package designs that will perform reliably in harsh duty applications.

What your background should look like:

Key Responsibilities:

• Participate early and all throughout NPI programs as a staff level molding subject matter expert making critical recommendations on all molded and overmolded components and assemblies.
• Recommend thermoplastic materials that will allow simultaneously balance of Design for Cost, Design for Manufacturability, Design for Performance & Reliability and Design for Sustainability for each NPI project.
• Work directly with modeling & simulation engineers to perform Mold Flow Analysis (MFA)
• Work with Supply Chain partners regarding plastic molding vendor selection, plastic molding vendor evaluation and provide comprehensive technical support throughout the entire quotation process, often serving as the primary technical liaison between the NPI teams and the vendor.
• Once a vendor has been selected, support Supply Chain and NPI team as the primary molding subject matter expert to oversee all technical aspects from mold concept design through development and ultimately first off tool evaluations.
• Participate and lead in the optimization of molding parameters to ensure full process capability and reproducibility. Construct DOEs to explore all design and process variation to ensure capability across all of the “process corners”.
• Participate and lead in evaluation of vendor performance and tooling acceptance. Advise/consult regarding any necessary mold modifications.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Supplier Quality counterparts as requested to conduct audits whether related to new or existing programs.
• Participate in regular frequency of project meetings, maintain action RAILs, document all information and ensure meeting minutes and all data and information is appropriately shared
• Regularly publish progress status reports to leadership and stakeholders highlighting achievements, milestone deliveries and associated metrics regarding molded components

What your background should look like:

• Bachelor's Degree in Plastics Engineering, Mold Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering or similar degree
• 15+ years of experience with molded and/or overmolded components and assemblies
• Proven experience overmolding sensitive electronics for sensing applications (i.e. Hall Effect, xMR, surface mount components)
• Skilled in defining molding infrastructure: Barrel Sizing, defining clamp tonnage, decoupled molding using pressure transducers (RJG eDart)
• Should have an excellent understanding of surrounding auxiliary equipment such as dryers and cooling systems & robotics
• Possess deep technical mastery of mold design, molding and molding parameter optimization
• Understanding common mechanical functions including hydraulics, pneumatics, electronics
• Ability to create preliminary mold cavity design from customer models
• Suggest product design changes to simplify mold design and produce lowest piece part cost that is easily manufacturable
• Experience with Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiment is required; use DOE tools for mold process optimization and validation.
• Complete Mold design reviews with tooling suppliers and molding vendors
• Familiar with Automotive standards and processes, PSWs, PPAPs etc.
• Experience with requirements definition, defining project scope and managing scope creep, identifying and mitigating risks, identifying and managing critical dependencies
• Experience leading global technology and product development teams in a cross-functional, multi-site environment to deliver projects with multiple dependencies and constraints
• Willingness to travel as required, ~25% up to 50% depending on project demands

Competencies