Position Summary: Manage and lead product development programs, current production programs or global development programs using PLUS with a cross functional team to meet all program deliverables and targets.
Specific Functions/Responsibilities:
Leadership: Represent the Simultaneous Development Team (SDT) in a professional way to the customer and Adient management. Motivate the team to meet commitments to the established timing. Build team technically and personally through mentoring and coaching. Resolve conflicts between team members, departments and the customer.
Negotiate with internal and external groups, vendors and customer. Ability to identify root cause of a problem, develop corrective action and lead team to resolution. Potentially lead other Program Managers. Experience launching new product, new process, new plant or multiple regions.
Simultaneous Development Team (SDT) Management: Act as the central communication point for the SDT to ensure that each SDT member is aware of their deliverables and timing commitments at all times. Trains and coaches the SDT in Adient Product Launch process to ensure compliance. Manages the SDT to meet timing, cost, manufacturing, quality and cost targets. Establishes the SDT meeting cadence and monitors attendance to assure the correct team members are present at each meeting. Creates agenda, schedules meetings and keeps the meeting on task. Provides team information needed to perform tasks. Actively includes suppliers as a member of the team.
Scope Management: Communicate the impact of scope changes to the customer and SDT in a timely manner in terms of cost, timing, product, quality of execution and impact on the program. Publish the SOW and SSOW and ensure all scope changes are captured in the documents. Utilize the PD3 approval process for internal and customer scope changes. Differentiate scope changes from engineering changes. Manage the risk of scope changes and keep management informed of change and affect on the program. Ensure that financial performance is protected and enhanced by customer driven scope changes.
0-0-100-100-30 Planning: Attain 0 recordable accidents, 0 rejected parts per million, 100% delivery on time, 100% of Capital Appropriation Request at 30 days post launch. Anticipate risk caused by late tasks and changes by developing mitigation strategy. Establish a documented implementation plan and containment action for engineering changes at launch. Work with suppliers to ensure all necessary resources are in place for launch. Provide on-site plant support throughout pre-production builds. Follow up on MSO to ensure plant material functions are ready. Foster effective working relationship between Plant launch team and CBU team. Maintains and manages scope changes within one year of launch. Bundle late changes into pre-launch and post-launch buckets to keep risk manageable.
Financial Roadmap & Financial Reporting: Schedules Finance SDT meeting once a month, from Development Start through Post Launch. Meet the financial targets of the program and manages Financial Roadmap dates, action and cost. Solid financial base to understand how to utilize SDT to impact financial measures and the relationship between financial measures. Ensures the product(s) is designed to meet BOM cost targets by facilitating between engineering and finance to meet targets.
Timing: Ability to create work breakdown structure (WBS) with customer milestones/deliverables used as the foundation. Gate timing developed from timeline that meets Adient and customer firewalls. The timeline and related timing documents, i.e. prototype schedule, CAD schedule, part matrices, etc. are consistent. Program timeline is utilized in weekly SDT to clearly communicate deliverables and due dates. Responsible for Gate exit reviews being held on time, regardless of whether or not exit can be achieved. Create issue lists that are clear and concise with due dates and deliverables.
Product: Responsible for leading team to meet Craftsmanship objectives, action plan to address gaps. Audit customer samples for customer satisfaction via Customer Shipping Approval Review. Manage CAD schedule, prototype build schedule, and testing schedule and ensure any gaps are addressed to meet timeline. Audit ED, DV, and PV testing results and manage timing and corrective action to support launch. Facilitates change management meeting. Meet applicable product requirements including specifications, functional expectations and FMVSS requirements.
Customer Satisfaction: Fosters an effective personal working relationship with appropriate customer contacts. Maintain Adient and personal credibility with customer. Recognized by customer as key contact for program implementation. Meets dates and commitments via customer open issues list which directs team for prompt responses. Communicate with data for scope changes with cost, quality and timing impact. Gain internal consensus on scope changes prior to communicating to customer. Archive and retain key customer correspondence and documents. Maintain regular contact with customer to communicate problems early. Does not avoid difficult issues or decisions. Understand customer’s organization and procedures in detail.
Global Management Skills: Function in a different culture while matching his/her interpersonal style to the culture they are working in. Has awareness and respect for different culture. Demonstrate an interest in other cultures.
Qualifications
Education Required: Technical Undergraduate Degree (Mechanical, Industrial, Chemical, Product, Civil, Electrical, Plastics, etc.). Masters Degree in Business strongly desired. PMP Certification desired. Problem solving and negotiation class experience desired.
Experience Required:
Five (5) years working experience in one or more of the following areas:
Engineering
Manufacturing/Quality
Finance
Seven (7) years management experience in one or more of the following areas:
Program Management (3 years leading a program)
Engineering Management
Manufacturing Management/Quality Management
Demonstrated leadership experience or completion of Adient Leadership Development Program
Seven (7) years of working experience in the Automotive Industry including at least one vehicle launch. Demonstrated knowledge of automotive design/launch process.
Working knowledge of Program Management process and tools. Global launch experience as the leader or member of the team.