Corporate Warranty Engineer

SUMMARY :        The Corporate Warranty Engineer is primarily responsible for direct customer warranty support, reporting and product quality continuous improvement activities related to product warranty obligations and requirements of the organization.  This includes direct engagement with Automotive OEM warranty / quality organizations to fulfill the technical requirements / performance to targets for Warranty Improvement specific to each OEM.  Rep orts directly to the Corporate Quality Director.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following.

Provide warranty technical support and expertise to specific individual OEM warranty groups.

Manage OEM customer relationships at the working level for successful delivery of required warranty reporting and support.

Utilize various and multiple Customer Warranty quality and warranty databases and web based applications to obtain and analyze Customer Warranty Data.  Includes applications that provide raw data requiring extensive analysis and reporting both internally and to the Customer.  Responsible to perform maintenance to the applications to remain current and attend OEM training to attain and maintain proficiency with the data systems.

Maintain strong internal interface with Product Engineers, Quality Engineers and Program Management to create cross functional teams to communicate warranty information and provide failed parts / data for analysis to provide effective improvement and reporting of organizational and Customer Warranty issues.

Drive the internal warranty reduction process with platform engineering, program management and plant manufacturing teams to reduce the economic risk to the company due to warranty recovery from OEM cost recovery systems and initiatives.

Ensure that new technology or new components embedded in Company products are assessed for warranty economic risk prior to start of production by reviewing the product design and processes and investigating any surrogate data available to provide a forecast of potential risk.

Review warranty processes and applicable data processing / storage systems to provide updates necessary to meet company requirements and to sustain effective and efficient data / part processing response time to internal and external customers.

Analyze and prepare, and edit appropriate presentation data to support Program Reviews and Phase Exits Reviews in the product development cycle.

Provide warranty report and product issue detail to support monthly summary assessment of all warranty metrics and OEM warranty measurable tracking for all business units and support the data and report needs to maintain consolidated key metric reporting.

Engage in continuous improvement opportunities as required.

Maintain compliance of IATF 16949 / ISO 9001 / ISO 14001.

Follows all safety, housekeeping (5S) and company policies and procedures.

Coordinates and maintains all job responsibilities in a continuous and flexible manner and performs other related duties and job assignments as required.

QUALIFICATIONS :   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 in Quality, Engineering, or Science related field with 3 -5 years of relevant product warranty work experience in automotive preferred.   Training and experience in related areas of automotive engineering and product validation testing for field performance specifications is highly desirable.  Knowledge and experience with automotive OEM quality / warranty systems (GM GART, Ford AWS, Chrysler EWT / QNA / PRAS, etc.), dealership operations, and automotive service procedures is highly desired.  Broad knowledge of Advanced Quality Planning, including experience with the AIAG Advances Quality Planning and Control Plan, FEMAs, PPAPs, MSA and Statistical Process Control (SPC) standards.  Warranty process experience including OEM warranty data systems, OEM warranty part return programs, warranty data / part analysis, automotive failure analysis, material testing and advanced problem solving techniques.  Proficient in use of a computer and common office software (i.e. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, etc).  Ability to work in a self-directed environment.  Good mechanical / technical skills and ability to read engineering drawings are desirable.  Experience with ISO / QS / IATF Quality Systems is required.  Lead Auditor certification is highly desired.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS :   The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit, stand, talk, hear, and walk.  Occasionally bend, squat, reach, twist / turn and lift up to 10 lbs.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include ability to adjust focus.