My client is a leading automotive components manufacturer and one of the few who have tightened their grip on the market, contrary to their competitors.
Supplying the world’s biggest companies in the automotive and commercial vehicle space has led to strong partnerships which have been further strengthened with partnership agreements.
One of the elements that must be tackled is the communication process. Past experience has shown that in certain instances, quality issues have been escalated to board level unnecessarily or have not been escalated quickly enough.
Process steps must be put in place in order to remove variability in approach – as incorrect points of contact and random communication routes can often mean that stakeholders who should be in the loop are left out – resulting in critical issues not being acted upon quickly enough. Conversely, certain low relevance quality matters are flagged up at top management level, causing undue concern and strain.
You will be a part of a key account sales team which is dedicated to each of the clients’ needs and acts as its embedded eyes and ears. You will report directly into the global account leader with a dotted line into the Group Quality Director.
You will also have at least 2 quality engineers reporting directly into you along with dotted lines to various quality engineers around the planet who will be based at the clients’ sites.
The client / supplier businesses are complex organisations with umbilical connections at various locations and levels – dealing in many different products at various points of the production cycle, not to mention the lucrative after sales market.
You will be challenged with understanding these complex businesses with a view to creating process steps and client engagement points within different functions and product departments. Your initial value stream mapping will illustrate the complicated nature of the joint operation. Creating and familiarising yourself with this map will be critical to your understanding of the role and ultimately, your success.
The client has a very strong Six Sigma programme and this is the mindset and toolkit you will be using. You will be a proficient user of this methodology and will have a Six Sigma certification at the very least.
At a glance:
- Assuring timely and appropriate response to incidents
- Issues management and escalation
- Monitoring of “0 KM” and field claims
- Organise and support customer audits
- Support Customer Partnership initiative (reaction & prediction)
- Claim settlements
- Negotiation of company-wide warranty agreements and contracts with the customer
- Managing alignment on certification requirements with the customer
- Monitoring and guiding the account-internal quality and processes
