Quality Engineer

TUTCO, LLC, a leading manufacturer of electric heat strips and heating elements serving the HVAC and appliance industries, is seeking a dynamic and detail-oriented Quality Engineer to join our team in Cookeville, Tennessee. POSITION SUMMARY The Quality Engineer is responsible for product and process quality throughout the product life cycle, with a strong emphasis on quality planning, manufacturing readiness, defect prevention, and customer satisfaction. This role leads cross-functional quality planning activities, develops and maintains core quality documents, analyzes process and product performance, and drives effective corrective and preventive actions. The Quality Engineer also serves as a key quality contact for assigned OEM customers, ensuring clear communication, timely responses, and alignment with customer-specific requirements. ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONSQuality Planning and Product Launch Support · Lead quality planning activities for new products, product transfers, design changes, process changes, and supplier changes from concept through production release. · Collaborate with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Sales, and Operations to identify product and process risks and define appropriate controls before release. · Develop, review, and maintain process flow diagrams, PFMEAs, control plans, inspection plans, test plans, and other quality planning records. · Define critical-to-quality characteristics, acceptance criteria, sampling requirements, measurement methods, validation needs, and documentation requirements. · Coordinate PPAP, FAI, and other customer approval submissions, including dimensional results, capability studies, material certifications, test data, and supporting records. · Assess the quality impact of engineering change requests and process changes, and ensure required verification, validation, training, and customer approval are completed before implementation. · Facilitate production readiness reviews and verify that quality requirements, inspection methods, gauges, work instructions, and control documents are in place before launch. OEM Customer Quality and Technical Support · Serve as the primary quality interface for assigned OEM customers and build professional, responsive working relationships with customer quality and engineering contacts. · Review and interpret customer drawings, specifications, quality manuals, portals, and customer-specific requirements; communicate applicable requirements to internal teams. · Coordinate timely responses for customer requests, including PPAPs, FAIs, RMAs, corrective action requests, deviations, source inspections, audits, and regulatory or restricted-substance inquiries. · Lead or support customer complaint investigations, containment activities, root cause analysis, corrective actions, and verification of effectiveness. · Prepare and present clear technical updates, quality data, investigation findings, and action plans during customer meetings and reviews. · Coordinate customer visits, audits, and quality reviews, and ensure commitments and action items are completed by agreed due dates. · Escalate significant customer, product, or compliance risks to Quality Leadership and affected functions. Product, Process, and Corrective Action · Monitor and analyze production, inspection, test, scrap, rework, warranty, and customer complaint data to identify trends, emerging risks, and improvement opportunities. · Lead structured problem-solving and root cause investigations using appropriate quality tools, and implement sustainable corrective and preventive actions. · Perform or coordinate product inspections, dimensional verification, reliability testing, and laboratory testing to confirm compliance with specifications and customer requirements. · Apply statistical methods, SPC, process capability analysis, measurement system analysis,…

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