Controls Project Engineer

Position: Sr. Project Engineer for Automated Custom Machinery

Reports to: Engineering Manager

Work arrangement : Onsite in Milwaukee w/ 25% travel to client sites

Purpose:

Responsible for the mechanical design integrity, approach, and profitability for machine design/build projects.

Responsible to take the mechanical design lead for a project under the direction of a project manager.

Responsible for understanding all technical issues potentially affecting your project such as customer specifications, cycle times, pneumatics, hydraulics, etc.

Continually assess the impact of these issues on your project and facilitate corrective action, maintain project budget, and engineering design release schedule integrity.

Knowledge and Experience Required:

A four (4) year technical degree (BSME) or equivalent is required to be considered for this position.

Five to ten years of direct custom machine design build and implementation experience will also be considered.

Other technical degrees (BSEE, BSEET, etc.) will be considered as it relates to your direct aptitude and experience with mechanical design and tooling design concepts for factory floor automation and production equipment.

Two (2) to five (5) years of direct manufacturing engineering and/or machine design, build, implementation, and start-up automation experience.

Hands-on machine tool, robotics/vision, computer controls, and data acquisition experience is desirable.

Three (3) to five (5) years experience with welding processes (GMAW, GTAW, PAW, etc.), Laser welding/cutting, Plasma cutting, and/or product assembly processes/procedures.

Familiar with welding equipment, packaging equipment, and/or high-speed assembly equipment or systems is desirable.

Direct experience working with customers and suppliers is desirable.

Interpersonal verbal and written communication skills are extremely important to a successful project engineer, and pertinent experience/proficiency is desirable.

To be successful in this position, the project engineer must find the balance with a customer.

Proven success managing, facilitating, or controlling a group of people or a large project to a timeline and schedule is desirable.

Familiar with IBM-compatible computers and software programs associated with Microsoft Office, specifically MS Project, is a definite plus. Current experience with Solid works is a must.

AutoCAD, 3D CAD, industrial PC programming, and robotics programming.

Experience with one (1) or more programming languages (C, FORTRAN Ladder Logic, etc.) is desirable.

Position Responsibilities:

Obtain project design hours and delivery milestone date objectives that are established for each project assigned, while designing a reliable and efficient machine at the lowest cost.

Assist the project manager (PM) in the design concept review meeting to discuss the customer-supplied machine specification requirements and innovative, cost effective, and time-saving machine design concepts to satisfy their needs.

Responsible for structuring and breakdown the design effort for large projects into manageable design tasks and then overseeing in-house Company designers/outside design houses.

Clearly communicate the design task scope, establish task design hours budget target for completion, establish a milestone schedule with clear completion deadlines and then regularly monitor progress.

Submit a detailed mechanical design schedule to the PM for each project to assist the PM in completing a project schedule within one week of project kickoff. All stations, all design tasks, design resources required, etc. must be provided to the PM to support the detailed information required per the Company standard project schedule template.

Coordinate with the Project Manager to have mechanical designers assigned to your design tasks.

Work with and supervise the mechanical designers to efficiently complete design tasks relative to the overall project schedule milestones established for the project.

Apply sound design practice to the development of hydraulic and pneumatic components to meet the design requirement of the machine design. Coordinate with the lead controls engineer or control project engineer assigned to the project, so the correct electrical components (i.e., hydraulic cylinders & valves, pneumatic cylinders & valves, etc.) are ordered to meet the mechanical engineering design requirements of the machine.

Identify hard-to-reach areas and potential problems relating to accessibility for part location proximity switches, safety pinch point areas, etc.

When necessary, engineering tasks may be sent outside to qualified, Company approved engineering design houses.

It is your responsibility to oversee this process and ensure that written project scope, and project budget maximums are defined, and agreement with the design house is obtained prior to beginning the task with an outside supplier. Communicate and document regularly to the PM and/or Engineering Manager the following project status, design completion dates, design problems or challenges, customer approval requirements, cycle time concerns, customer part issues or discrepancies, or any issues that may impact the success of the project.

The Project Engineer is responsible for documenting and reporting to the Engineering Manager and Project Manager with the following: Cycle time changes/operator load times concerns designs.

Customer part changes/concerns.

Cycle time throughout the debug basis on a weekly basis.

Fixture set-up and parts qualification from a PPK and CPK basis Discrepancies with customer parts.

Cost due to missed components/concept changes/overall cost overruns. Technical communications with customers.

Design review/meeting notes.

Proper selection of materials and components.

Follow the design checklist for company specifications.

Responsible for acquiring the design/detail status report weekly from the controls/mechanical engineers.

Schedule and hold design review meetings per schedule