JOB DESCRIPTION
Quality Manager – Plant, Product & Customer Quality
Gearbox / Drivetrain / Heavy Engineering
Location: Vadodara, Gujarat, India
Experience: 15+ years
Function: Quality / Manufacturing / Product Quality
Reporting: Global Quality / Product Quality Leadership
Travel: Extensive domestic and international travel
1. Role Overview
Our client is looking for a senior Quality Management professional to lead Plant Quality, Product Quality and Manufacturing Quality for its Gearbox & Drivetrain business.
The role requires a highly experienced quality leader who can manage quality across the complete product lifecycle — from manufacturing, machining, assembly and testing through installation, commissioning, customer operation, field issues, warranty and long-term product performance.
The individual will act as the Quality owner and customer-facing quality representative for complex product and quality issues throughout the operational life of the product.
This is not a conventional Supplier Quality, Service Engineering or Solutions Engineering role. The individual will be responsible for understanding customer and field problems from a quality, reliability, manufacturing and root-cause perspective, developing sustainable quality solutions, and coordinating their implementation with the relevant internal and external stakeholders.
2. Key Responsibilities
A. Plant & Manufacturing Quality Management
- Lead and manage plant-level quality activities across manufacturing, machining, fabrication, assembly and testing.
- Establish and maintain robust quality systems, standards, inspection plans, control plans and quality procedures.
- Ensure products are manufactured in accordance with engineering drawings, specifications, applicable standards and customer requirements.
- Drive reduction in defects, rejection, rework, process variation and Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ).
- Monitor manufacturing quality performance through appropriate KPIs and management reviews.
- Work closely with Production, Manufacturing Engineering, Design Engineering and Operations teams to resolve process and product-quality issues.
- Ensure effective implementation of corrective and preventive actions within manufacturing.
- Promote a strong quality culture across the plant and manufacturing organization.
B. Product Quality Management
- Own and drive product quality throughout the complete product lifecycle.
- Support product development, industrialization, validation, manufacturing, assembly, testing, commissioning and operational phases.
- Identify recurring product-quality issues and ensure that lessons learned are incorporated into product and manufacturing improvements.
- Work closely with Product Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering to identify technical and process-related quality risks.
- Review product performance data and identify opportunities for improving reliability and quality.
- Ensure that product-related corrective actions are effectively implemented and their effectiveness is verified.
C. Customer & End-Client Quality Management
- Act as the primary Quality interface for significant customer and end-client quality issues.
- Take ownership of complex quality problems arising after product installation and commissioning.
- Engage directly with customers to understand their concerns, operating conditions, product performance and failure symptoms.
- Visit customer locations to investigate significant quality issues and understand problems firsthand.
- Work with customer engineering, maintenance and technical teams to gather relevant information and evidence.
- Ensure that customer concerns are addressed through a structured quality investigation rather than only an immediate technical/service response.
- Maintain regular communication with customers throughout the investigation, corrective-action and resolution process.
- Build long-term customer confidence through professional handling of quality issues and transparent communication.
D. Field Failure, RCA & Quality Solutions
- Lead investigation of product failures, field complaints, warranty issues and recurring quality problems.
- Conduct detailed Root Cause Analysis (RCA) using appropriate problem-solving methodologies.
- Lead 8D, CAPA, 5-Why, Fishbone, Fault Tree Analysis and other structured problem-solving approaches as appropriate.
- Determine whether the root cause is related to:
- Manufacturing process
- Machining
- Material
- Heat treatment
- Assembly
- Product design
- Supplier/component
- Installation
- Operating conditions
- Process control
- Develop sustainable quality-based corrective and preventive solutions.
- Coordinate with Engineering, Manufacturing, Suppliers, OEMs and other stakeholders to implement corrective actions.
- Verify the effectiveness of corrective actions at the customer/site level.
- Ensure recurring problems are eliminated rather than temporarily contained.
E. Product Lifecycle Quality Support
- Maintain quality ownership from manufacturing through commissioning, customer operation and long-term product life.
- Monitor field performance and identify recurring failure patterns.
- Analyse customer complaints, warranty cases, field failures and operational data.
- Feed field experience and lessons learned back into:
- Product Engineering
- Manufacturing
- Quality Systems
- Supplier Management
- Product Development
- Process Engineering
- Support continuous improvement of existing products throughout their lifecycle.
- Develop mechanisms to prevent recurrence of field issues across other products, plants and customers.
F. Supplier & OEM Coordination
Supplier management is an important supporting responsibility, but this is NOT a Supplier Quality Manager position.
- Coordinate with suppliers when supplier-related issues contribute to customer or product-quality problems.
- Engage suppliers in RCA, corrective actions and verification of effectiveness.
- Work with OEMs and strategic partners where product quality issues require joint investigation.
- Ensure supplier corrective actions are aligned with the overall product-quality solution.
- Collaborate with Procurement and Supplier Quality teams without making supplier management the primary focus of the role.
G. Global Stakeholder Management
- Work closely with global engineering, manufacturing, product management, supply chain, procurement, service, project management and quality teams.
- Operate effectively within a global, multidisciplinary and matrix organization.
- Coordinate quality investigations across different countries, plants, suppliers and customer locations.
- Present quality issues, RCA findings, risks, corrective actions and improvement plans to senior/global management.
- Ensure effective alignment between local operations and global quality/product requirements.
- Represent the Quality function confidently in global meetings and customer discussions.
3. Customer Site & Travel Responsibilities
The position involves significant domestic and international travel.
The Quality Manager may be required to:
- Visit customer locations following major product-quality issues.
- Investigate failures at installed/operational sites.
- Interact directly with customer engineering and maintenance teams.
- Visit manufacturing plants and supplier locations.
- Participate in installation and commissioning quality reviews.
- Support global quality investigations.
- Attend customer, supplier and global stakeholder meetings.
The candidate should be comfortable with extensive travel across India and international locations.
4. Leadership & Communication
The role requires an individual with a strong, confident and influential leadership presence.
The successful candidate should demonstrate:
- Exceptional verbal and written communication skills.
- Strong customer-facing capability.
- Ability to communicate complex quality problems in a clear and structured manner.
- Confidence in challenging technical and quality issues constructively.
- Ability to influence senior stakeholders without relying solely on formal authority.
- Strong interpersonal and relationship-building skills.
- Ability to manage difficult customer situations professionally.
- High ownership and accountability.
- Dynamic, proactive and solution-oriented approach.
- Ability to work effectively with senior management, customers, OEMs, suppliers and global teams.
5. Product / Industry Experience
Essential
Candidates should have significant experience with complex engineered mechanical products, preferably in:
- Gearboxes
- Drivetrains
- Rotating equipment
- Heavy machinery
- Heavy engineering
- Industrial equipment
- Mining equipment
- Power generation
- Hydropower
- Oil & Gas equipment
- Large mechanical assemblies
- Capital equipment
Experience with large-size gearboxes, drivetrain systems or comparable heavy engineered equipment will be highly relevant.
6. Required Technical Competencies
The candidate should have strong practical knowledge of:
- Manufacturing Quality
- Plant Quality Management
- Product Quality Management
- Machining Quality
- Assembly Quality
- Testing & Validation
- Installation & Commissioning Quality
- Customer Quality
- Field Quality
- Warranty Quality
- Product Lifecycle Management
- Root Cause Analysis
- 8D Problem Solving
- CAPA
- FMEA / PFMEA
- SPC / MSA
- APQP / PPAP
- Quality Audits
- Lean Manufacturing
- Six Sigma
- Continuous Improvement
- Quality KPI Management
7. Education & Experience
Education
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Production Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Quality Management or a related discipline.
Experience
- 15+ years of relevant professional experience in Quality, Manufacturing, Product Quality or related functions.
- Significant experience in plant/manufacturing quality management.
- Demonstrated experience handling customer/end-client quality issues.
- Experience conducting or leading customer-site investigations and RCA.
- Experience supporting products through installation, commissioning and operational lifecycle.
- Experience working with global stakeholders and multinational organizations.
- Experience in heavy engineering, gearbox, drivetrain, rotating equipment or complex engineered products preferred.
8. Preferred Experience
Preference will be given to candidates with:
- Large-size gearbox/drivetrain experience.
- Heavy machinery or capital equipment background.
- Experience with GE, Siemens, ZF, Flender, Voith, ABB, BHEL or comparable global engineering organizations.
- Mining, power generation, hydropower, oil & gas or industrial equipment exposure.
- Customer-site quality investigation experience.
- Warranty and field-failure management experience.
- International customer and stakeholder exposure.
- Experience working within a global matrix organization.
- Lean Six Sigma certification.
- APQP/PPAP/PFMEA/SPC/MSA expertise.
9. Key Performance Indicators
The Quality Manager will be measured on areas including:
- Plant First Pass Yield (FPY)
- Manufacturing defect and rejection rate
- Rework reduction
- Cost of Poor Quality
- Customer complaint reduction
- Warranty claim reduction
- Recurring field-failure reduction
- RCA/8D closure effectiveness
- Corrective-action effectiveness
- Customer satisfaction
- Field quality performance
- Product reliability
- Commissioning quality
- Response and resolution time for customer quality issues
- Successful implementation of lifecycle quality improvements
Candidate Summary:
Current Details:
Current Company:
Current Designation:
Total Experience:
Current CTC:
Expected CTC:
Notice Period:
Current Location:
Willing to relocate to Vadodara:
Total Experience:
Relevant Quality Experience:
Relevant Heavy Engineering / Industrial Equipment Experience:
Gearbox / Drivetrain Experience:
Large-Size Gearbox / Heavy Machinery Experience:
Manufacturing / Plant Quality Experience:
Machining Quality Experience:
Assembly & Testing Quality Experience:
Product Quality Experience:
Customer / End-Client Quality Experience:
Field Quality / Warranty / Field Failure Experience:
Installation & Commissioning Quality Experience:
RCA / 8D / CAPA / 5-Why / Fishbone Experience:
FMEA / PFMEA / SPC / MSA / APQP / PPAP Experience:
Quality Systems / Audits / ISO Experience:
Lean Manufacturing / Six Sigma Experience:
Quality KPI / FPY / COPQ / Rejection / Rework Experience:
Global Teams / Global Customers Experience:
International Travel Experience / Willingness to Travel Internationally:
Customer-Site Investigation Experience:
Education / Engineering Qualification:
Six Sigma Certification:
