Chicago, IL, US
Job Title:
Plant Vehicle Team Engineer - Body / Vehicle Quality Engineering
Position Overview:
- We are seeking a Plant Vehicle Team Engineer (PVTE) to support vehicle quality initiatives within an automotive assembly plant environment.
- This role is responsible for identifying, analyzing, and resolving vehicle quality issues using warranty data, plant investigations, and structured problem-solving methodologies.
- This is a hands-on, plant-floor-focused role requiring close collaboration with manufacturing, supplier quality, and engineering teams to drive root cause analysis and corrective actions.
Key Responsibilities:
- Analyze warranty claim data and customer feedback to identify failure trends, emerging issues, and high-impact quality concerns
- Perform daily triage and binning of warranty claims into appropriate categories to support prioritization Conduct root cause investigations using plant-floor inspections, returned parts analysis, and cross-functional collaboration
- Lead development and execution of: Interim Containment Actions (ICA) Permanent Corrective Actions (PCA)
- Support assembly plant activities including: Stop Ships / Stop Builds Quality Campaigns and Audits Engineering Trials and Running Changes
- Work directly on the plant floor to investigate build issues and validate corrective actions
- Collaborate with suppliers and internal engineering teams to resolve component and subsystem quality issues
- Maintain and report on Vehicle Functional Group (VFG) quality metrics (Top 20 issues) Issue engineering alerts and documentation to support product changes and quality improvements
- Present findings, status updates, and recommendations to cross-functional teams and leadership
Skills Required:
- Technical Skills Strong experience with warranty data analysis: Excel (pivot tables, lookups, trend analysis, large dataset handling)
- Ability to navigate CAD models (NX, CATIA, or similar) for: Part-to-part interface analysis
- Root cause investigation (Note: Design ownership is not required, but functional CAD usage is essential)
- Problem-Solving & Quality Tools Demonstrated experience using structured methodologies: 8D Problem Solving 5 Why Analysis Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagrams
- Experience implementing: Interim Containment Actions (ICA) Permanent Corrective Actions (PCA)
- Core Competencies Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills in a manufacturing environment
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, high-visibility plant setting
- Effective cross-functional communication with engineering, production, and suppliers Ability to own issues end-to-end and drive them to closure
Experience Required:
- 3 years of experience in: Automotive manufacturing, OR Plant quality, product engineering, or warranty analysis roles
- Hands-on experience in an OEM assembly plant environment is required Proven experience performing root cause analysis and driving issues to resolution in a production environment
Experience Preferred:
- Automotive OEM or Tier 1 supplier experience in: Body systems, closures, or vehicle structures
- Experience with: PLM tools (e.g., Teamcenter)
- Warranty or quality tracking systems Prior involvement in launch support or running product changes
Education Required:
Bachelor's Degree
Additional Information:
- Position is fully onsite.
- Other applicable experience could be considered 100% onsite role within an automotive assembly plant
- Requires regular time on the plant floor investigating active production issues
