Engineer, Metal Innovation

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Position Overview:

As an Engineer for Metal & Engineering, you are a key member of the Global Innovation-Metal team;  reporting to the Manager, Closure Innovation. You will contribute to the success of Ball by providing project management and technical support for the research and development of metal beverage container closures.

Key Areas of Responsibility Include:  

• Create resealable packaging designs in aluminum, plastic, or hybrid components and generate / execute various mechanical and process testing/trials to develop new packaging.
• Work with design team to develop forming tooling and sequences to create final product. 
• Work with new and existing suppliers to create new or transfer existing processes to metal or composite material forming.
• Interact with internal customers to generate new packaging designs and validate package integrity.
• Create and document innovations into finalized Intellectual Property (IP)  including patents and trade secret.
• Utilize analytical & statistical evaluation & analysis tools such as DOE, FMEA, cost models, statistically relevant / significant sample sizes & run lengths with control data comparisons.
• Seek, identify, & proactively address areas of concern such as resources, project delays, etc. by creating recovery paths where needed.
• Create comprehensive engineering packages for operations & engineering to optimize production startups & minimize operational issues in the plant environment.
  •  This may require heavy support/collaboration in creating / editing quality test methods / equipment / Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s), tooling, material specifications & EHS documentation, etc.
• Utilize stage gate & project management tools & documentation to enable & document cross functional collaboration w/ areas such as business development, sales, operations, & engineering.
• Evaluation of capital equipment, support equipment and material usage in support of business cases for new products.

Required Skills and Experience: 

• Bachelors degree in an Engineering discipline or other related technical discipline such as metallurgy or physics.
• Minimum of 2 years related engineering research and development work.
• Demonstrated skills and experience: 
  • Familiarity with technical drawing, dimensioning (including GD&T), metrology, tool manufacture and machine design knowledge.
  • Ability to work with geographically dispersed engineering and business teams.
  • Ability to multitask and think/troubleshoot in a nonlinear manner.
  • Clear, concise, and effective communication skills (written and verbal) to provide direction and promote project management best-practices.
  • Statistical principles and ability to apply in practice.
  • Data collection and analysis.
  • Basic project management skills and experience with project/program management tools (such as Microsoft Project).
  • Ability to work independently and follow directions.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Masters degree in a technical discipline or MBA.   
• Expertise with high speed manufacturing equipment.
• Familiarity with high speed metal forming technologies, including drawing, ironing, stamping, impact extrusion and spinning as well as hybrid component manufacturing.
• Experience with beverage cap/closure manufacturing process and design.
• Knowledge of plastic injection component design and manufacturing process.