Job Description
Ready to join a growing company with a positive culture, dedication to customer service, and great benefits? Join us in beautiful East Jordan, Michigan! EJ is seeking a Product Tooling Manager at our Pattern Shop Facility. The Pattern Shop serves numerous EJ facilities including foundries, fabrication, machining and composites facilities. We provide exceptional tooling to ensure the quality of products made at every EJ facility we serve. We take pride in every project. Location: East Jordan, MI SUMMARY This individual will be responsible for the Product Tooling group and therefore responsible for assigning and overseeing personnel and processes as they relate to production tooling and manufacturing needs. This individual is involved with investigating incidents, enhancing processes, and developing processes and procedures to drive continuous improvement. The position will play a pivotal role in ensuring operational excellence and delivering high-quality tooling in a timely manner. ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned. Manage end-to-end production tooling requests (NPR/FTR), ensuring requirements align across Product Development, Foundry, and Pattern Shop. Lead tooling review/approval meetings; drive timely decisions, approvals, and issue resolution. Set priorities and schedule Pattern Shop work to meet production needs and delivery commitments. Partner with Pattern Shop leadership to coordinate resources, remove roadblocks, and ensure on-time completion. Develop tooling cost estimates; monitor labor/material/overhead and support budget and CAPEX planning. Use business systems and data (e.g., Domo and shared trackers) to manage workloads, standards, metrics, and reporting. Oversee purchasing, requisitions, and inventory controls; support variance reporting and financial accuracy. Support R&D and continuous improvement initiatives, including cross-site tooling support as needed. Promote safety and environmental compliance and participate in department/facility initiatives. Develop, coach, and support team performance through training, feedback, and performance management. Promotes the culture, the mission and vision, and the core values of the company. This includes adherence to and promotion of the company safety beliefs, employee engagement, competencies, code of conduct, and other policies and procedures. MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES Leads team of Designers, Item Master and Pattern Shop Supervision to structure its workload and overall department organization guided by EJ Corporate Leadership. This role is responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of the Pattern Shop Department. Key responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, training, and developing employees; planning, assigning, and directing work. In this role, you may be involved in or offer support in the areas of assessing employee performance; rewarding and disciplining staff as well as addressing complaints and resolving issues in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. QUALIFICATIONS To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE Bachelor's Degree required with four to ten years related experience and/or training. CAD abilities and various foundry related process understanding with a focus on molding. CNC machine understanding preferred. LANGUAGE SKILLS Ability to read and interpret documents such as safety rules & environmental rules and regulations. Ability to write routine reports and correspondence. Ability to speak effectively before groups of customers or employees of the organization. MATHEMATICAL SKILLS Ability to work with mathematical concepts such as probability and statistical inference, and fundamentals of plane and solid geometry, and trigonometry. Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios and proportions to practical situations. REASONING ABILITY Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions. Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS Proven ability to conceptualize projects and directives given by coworkers and em