Senior Product Quality Owner

Senior Quality Assurance Engineer (Product Quality Owner) , De’Longhi Group (De’Longhi, Kenwood and Braun Household) Kenwood Global Headquarters, Havant, Hampshire | £Competitive + excellent benefits package

Closing date 12th January 2025

What does quality mean to you?

At the De’Longhi Group, quality is integral to the heritage of our brands and present in everything we do. Our QA Engineers are known within the Group as Product Quality Owners, and are responsible for quality conformance throughout the product lifecycle from cradle to grave. Taking total ownership of specific product categories, they learn lessons from projects undertaken, identify trends from the field and apply these to improve products and quality standards and practices.

We are now seeking a Senior Product Quality Owner to oversee a product category. It’s a great opportunity to support a variety of other business functions by testing products across a wide variety of household brands.

The role

This is an important and varied role where you will interact with many different facets of the business. You will be involved in the full NPD process from conception and feasibility testing to final validation testing and the preparation for start of mass production. You’ll use consumer feedback to deliver continuous improvement, promoting a quality ethos within the project team and throughout the Group. It’s an inspiring role for someone who is passionate to be the best they can be.

Your role will involve understanding how all aspects of a product come together, from the design and production processes to the specifics of individual components to deliver a product with class leading functionality, performance and durability. You may not be a subject matter expert in any specific area but you’ll be keen to broaden your horizons, tapping into the experience and knowledge of those around you.

Key responsibilities

Your responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Total Quality ownership for a specific product category.

• Ensuring products fulfil design specification requirements and are fit for purpose.

• Initiating and owning product improvements and corrective actions applying statistical trend data, 8D and root-cause analysis techniques.

• Direct alignment with aftersales, suppliers, R&D & worldwide quality teams.

• Achieving performance results in line with business objectives.

• Communicating the Quality status with project teams and key stakeholders.

About you

You’ll be educated to HNC level or above in Electronic, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, with demonstrable experience in a relevant field including fault finding and root cause analysis. Your knowledge of associated methodologies and processes (such as 8D and 5Y) will be complemented by an ability to collate and present data in clear and concise summary reports.

Your behaviour, attitude and soft skills will be just as significant as your technical knowledge. You’ll need to communicate and negotiate with engineers, designers and factory engineers delivering feedback about faults and issues in a positive way. As such you’ll need to be patient and good team player. Your strong communication skills will enable you to concisely communicate the status of a project to stakeholders at all levels, including those with less knowledge than you. You’ll be assured in your decision-making, with a pragmatic vision of how to find a solution.

You’ll be expected to take ownership and lead your product category, tenacious as you grasp issues in the field and work with R&D, factories and technical service teams to find solutions. You’ll need the confidence to make decisions without all of the available information, and the ability to know how and when to do so.

Above all you’ll need the drive, knowledge and collaboration skills to succeed in a varied and busy role while acting as an ambassador for the Quality Department. You need to be willing to learn, open to new ideas, able to push your boundaries and challenge yourself.

You will be based at our headquarters in Havant with occasional travel to De’Longhi Group facilities and suppliers (locally and internationally) to support our product quality actions. As such you will need an easy commute to the office, ideally living within an hour of our offices in Havant, Hampshire.

What’s in it for you?

This role offers an opportunity to have total ownership for the quality of a product category, working with talented people for a great brand in a friendly and collaborative environment. Our culture and office environment are outstanding, with heavy investment into learning and development for all staff. Our flexible benefits package includes:

• Competitive Salary

• Excellent contributory pension

• Early Friday finish (12.30 p.m.)

• 25 days holiday + bank holidays

• Superb subsidised restaurant

• Free on-site parking

• Access to a range of wellbeing activities and events

• Hybrid working after probation

About us

De'Longhi, Kenwood and Braun Household are pioneering kitchen and home appliance brands that are internationally recognised and respected. They are all part of the De'Longhi Group, which is based in Treviso, near Venice in Italy, and has international operations in more than 30 countries.

Our location

We are based at Kenwood’s global HQ on the beautiful South Coast between Portsmouth and Chichester, where our products are conceived and tested, and where our Kenwood brand global HQ and Delonghi Group’s UK & Ireland subsidiary is based. UK We typically operate a hybrid working model, with three days in the office and two working remotely/at home, with some flexibility available. Candidates should therefore live with a reasonable commuter distance, and have a driver’s licence.