Product Development Engineer - Paperboard

The Paperboard Product Development Engineer focuses on developing new paperboard products and improving the performance of existing ones. This person provides a critical link between the mill and R&D functions during the development of new market offerings and technologies. He or she must interact across a broad spectrum of functions within the organization, coordinating efforts of Manufacturing, Technical Solutions, Commercial, Supply Chain, vendors and customers.

The Paperboard Product Development group marshals R&D resources to help the mill on the manufacturing end and provides the mill’s voice to commercial and innovation efforts. They help translate converting and end use performance to manufacturing parameters and vice versa. Moving forward as Smurfit Westrock, this group will increasingly collaborate with internal converting, sister mills and R&D, driving EBITDA growth by developing paperboard, extrusion and coatings solutions that meet market needs.

What You Will Need:

• Strong technical skills; strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Good interpersonal skills and ability to collaborate with multiple disciplines
• Experience in experimental design, data management and analysis
• Project management skills. Ability to drive results in trials, logistics and evaluations
• Ability to handle multiple tasks and projects and deliver results to meet project deadlines.
• Problem solving, Root Cause Analysis
• Ability to work in a multi-team environment, consolidating inputs from multiple stakeholders
• Desire to learn and apply that knowledge

Responsibilities

• Working closely with Operations, R&D, Technical Solutions, Commercial and Business Development, identify opportunities to create new products or improve performance and/or profitability of existing products made at Evadale and associated converting operations.
• Assist R&D and operations in translating new technologies that improve manufacturing processes or enable new products.
• Define product design, specifications, and operating parameters to meet end use requirements.
• Coordinate with operations, supply chain and converters to plan, execute and evaluate trials. Summarize and report trial results clearly to draw conclusions and develop next steps
• Work with finance leads to define costs and margin impact of new products and improvements.
• Assist commercial and marketing functions in developing value propositions and business cases.
• Communicate and maintain rapport with key stakeholders.
• Provide strong technical and project leadership.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/Technical discipline (Graduate degree a plus)
• Depending on degree, minimum 5 years of relevant work experience (paper manufacturing and/or converting operations: extrusion, coating, print, packaging)
• Strong proficiency in data management and analysis (Excel, Minitab, etc.)
• Fluency in data systems (e.g., PI Process Book, Optivision, SAP) a plus
• Six Sigma training
• Strong Project Management skills.
• Able to travel 10-40%, depending on project requirements and environmental constraints.