New Product Introduction - Product Assurance Manager
// Role Summary
Lead quality assurance for new product introduction (NPI) into series production, providing strategic quality leadership and risk mitigation in a technically advanced defence manufacturing environment.
// Key Responsibilities
- Assure quality for complex, high-reliability systems from inception.
- Provide independent quality assurance and governance for NPI manufacturing programmes.
- Influence Engineering and Manufacturing decisions to meet quality, cost, and delivery targets.
- Lead risk identification and mitigation, embedding a proactive quality mindset.
- Drive process effectiveness and continuous improvement for robust, repeatable manufacturing.
- Conduct audits, analyze non-conformance, and lead root cause investigations.
// Role Specification
About the Role
We are seeking an experienced Quality professional to play a pivotal role in assuring the successful introduction of new products into series production manufacturing. This is a high-impact position where you will provide independent assurance, strategic quality leadership, and risk mitigation across New Product Introduction (NPI) programmes. Working within a technically advanced environment, from electronic assemblies through to fully integrated systems, you will influence how products are built, ensuring that processes are robust, scalable, and right first time.
What You'll Be Doing
- Provide independent quality assurance and governance across NPI manufacturing programmes.
- Act as a trusted advisor to Engineering and Manufacturing, influencing decisions to ensure quality, cost, and delivery targets are achieved.
- Lead risk identification and mitigation activities, embedding a proactive quality mindset early in the product lifecycle.
- Drive process effectiveness and continuous improvement, ensuring manufacturing methods are robust, repeatable, and compliant.
- Conduct and lead internal audits and independent assessments, reporting outcomes to senior stakeholders and ensuring timely resolution of findings.
- Analyse non-conformance and defect data, leading structured root cause investigations and implementing sustainable corrective actions.
- Facilitate and support PFMEA/DFMEA activities, ensuring risks are actively managed and reduced.
- Support industrial validation and product introduction, ensuring readiness for manufacture at scale.
- Champion the effective use of systems (e.g. SAP) for non-conformance management.