Quality Manager

Job Title: Quality Manager

Location: Milledgeville, GA

Fouts Bros is a family-owned business since 1952 with facilities in Georgia and Texas. Fouts Bros is proud to have become one of the largest and most diverse commercial truck manufacturers in the US. Fouts Bros is committed to developing new commercial vehicles that provide industry-best value, quality, and dependability.

Our company's core values are quality, efficiency, continuous improvement, safety, and teamwork. We believe in conducting business with honesty and transparency, continuously seeking new ways to improve and evolve, fostering relationships with our community and supporting local initiatives, and operating in an environmentally responsible manner to minimize our impact on the planet.

Job Summary:

The Quality Manager ensures high-quality standards across all facilities by overseeing quality control procedures, driving continuous improvement initiatives, and maintaining compliance with industry standards. The Quality Manager plays a key role in identifying and implementing best practices, leading quality improvement initiatives, and instilling a quality and continuous improvement culture across the Fouts Bros/Smyrna Truck organization. This role ensures that all products meet the highest quality standards and reach customers free of defects, helping maintain customer satisfaction and uphold the company's reputation for quality excellence.

The position is based at Fouts Bros, Milledgeville, GA.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build a customer-centric culture that ensures the delivery of products that meet customer requirements, exceed customer expectations, and comply with all specifications.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to improve product quality metrics, reduce costs, and minimize scrap.
• Lead lean/continuous improvement activities for Quality processes and support other departments with their lean/continuous improvement activities.
• Engage with Engineering and Procurement to mature designs, support PPAP/First Article completion, and ensure required product testing is completed per the drawing/Spec requirements.
• Build and maintain positive relationships with customers and suppliers, addressing quality concerns and striving to improve overall satisfaction.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to solve complex quality issues using root cause analysis and corrective action methods (8D, A3, 5 Whys).
• Educate and support employees on quality procedures, initiatives, and policies.
• Mentor site quality inspectors and guide the application of consistent quality standards
• Report on key quality performance metrics to stakeholders.
• Supervise the claims reporting and warranty data administration
• Collect and analyze reports of product defects to identify root causes and recommend preventive measures.
• Analyze data from quality inspections to identify trends, issues, and areas for improvement.
• Research, write, and implement policies and procedures to reduce defect and claims frequency.
• Collaborate with various departments to ensure quality and safety adherence and provide training and education to reinforce best practices.
• Manage and maintain quality inspection, test, and validation programs for in-process and finished goods.
• Evaluate and verify employee performance. Identify staff development and training needs. Provide employee coaching and development or otherwise ensure training is obtained.
• Read and interpret blueprints, technical drawings, schematics, or computer-generated reports.
• Confer with engineers or other personnel to implement operating procedures, resolve system malfunctions, or provide technical information.
• Develop or test models of alternate designs or processing methods to assess feasibility, sustainability, operating condition effects, potential new applications, or necessity of modification.
• Responsible for departmental compliance and enforcement of all Fouts Bros/Smyrna Truck policies and procedures. Ensure consistent and effective employee relations. Recommend rewards/recognition as appropriate. Resolve issues and initiate necessary disciplinary action as required.

Qualifications and Education Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Quality Management; a master's degree is a plus.
• 10 years of experience in quality management in a complex manufacturing setting utilizing Six Sigma tools in solving manufacturing and customer problems.
• Prior experience required with obtaining ISO 9000 (or similar quality system) certification
• 5-7 years of management experience
• Demonstrated success in reducing costs associated with poor quality through improvement strategies.
• Experience with maintenance and testing of fire apparatus, quality and industry standards such as ISO 9001, NFPA, FAA, ASTM, etc. preferred.
• Must have excellent communication skills, both written and oral, and have the ability to effectively interact with Customers, Dealers, Team Leaders, Managers, and Associates.
• Proven success in team building, conflict resolution, and problem-solving from identification through root cause resolution.
• Proficiency with Computer applications (Baan, Word, Excel,) required
• Experience with Lean manufacturing or Six Sigma methodologies preferred.
• ASQ certification as a green belt, quality auditor, or quality engineer a plus.

ABOUT FOUTS BROS:

Fouts Brothers is family owned and operated since 1952 and builds fire apparatus that fight fires in every state in the continental US. With over 400 employees, we are based out of our 700,000 square foot facility in Milledgeville, GA, with a second facility in LaGrange, Texas. As a leading manufacturer of fire apparatus, our associates are dedicated to innovation, safety, and customer satisfaction and have positioned Fouts Bros as a trusted name in the industry.

Fouts Bros is committed to developing new fire products that provide industry-best value, quality, and dependability. To provide our customers with the best service, specifications, and delivery times available anywhere in America, we design and manufacture a standard line model of fire trucks to meet the needs of every fire station in the country. We build our apparatus to exacting standards and equip each unit that rolls off our line with only the highest quality fire equipment brands on the market.

Our unique recipe of solid base design plus scalable production allows us to create efficiencies in our design and production processes, that means huge cost savings and delivery expediency to our customers nationwide. Fouts Bros customers receive their trucks faster than any other fire apparatus manufacturer can deliver: a typical custom purchase order to delivery lead time is 4-6 months from start to finish, and we almost always have stock units ready to deliver to the right customer in a matter of days.