We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Product Development Manager to lead our Product Development engineering team in China. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in engineering management, excellent leadership skills, and a proven track record of delivering high-quality projects on time and within budget.
Key Responsibilities:
• Lead, manage, and coach a team of Development Engineers to deliver material handling products to internal and external customers/key stakeholders, driving value in product design. Design criteria include ease of application, installation, functionality, commissioning, reliability, safety, and maintenance.
• Participate in the development and implementation of strategic and tactical plans to achieve on-time delivery of products through resource management, including outside contractors as needed.
• Build international partnerships to extend consistent standards and deliver with excellence to support Dematic’s strategic vision, growth, and stability.
• Product Series development, include optimization, localization, cost-optimization development, etc.
• Create and maintain a feedback loop for internal customers to ensure day-to-day job tasks are meeting expectations.
• Build a team culture of trust, encouragement, accountability, collaboration, and excellence.
• Practice leadership, actively participate in Product Development Engineering management meetings, contribute to a continuous improvement mindset with input and actions, take initiative to make things better, driving continuous improvement and lean initiatives.
• Enrich internal and external cross-functional partnerships across all levels of Dematic and KION, as appropriate, to bolster team visibility, accountability, and positive impact on the organization.
Project/Product Delivery:
• Ensure that the team’s product execution is on schedule and on budget, following all the engineering MAPS processes and the Product Management GOLD process to ensure timely delivery of assigned, quality products that meet specified requirements.
• Conduct monthly evaluations and weekly reporting of product development status.
• Provide accurate monthly forecasting of resources and timelines, for new development, sustaining projects, and Engineering Design Requests.
• Ensure teams keep accurate, thorough project records in specified documentation locations and MS Project Schedules, and that tasks are updated at least monthly.
• Build engineering capabilities and team success by identifying skills, assigning appropriate work, and providing work opportunities/trainings for engineers’ skill improvement.
• Maintain safety & compliance standards and communications.
• Proactively drive capacity planning through innovative work assignment and collaboration with other managers.
• Encourage innovation, continuous improvement, and position your team as technical leaders for assigned products.
• Provide thorough, timely escalation of issues to the manager with background information and details needed along with possible impact assessments and suggested next steps, to facilitate quick action.
• Resolve issues or conflicts in a timely, appropriate manner.
Financial Responsibility:
• Manage projects and workload to product budgets, resources, and timelines. Practice active opportunity tracking and risk mitigation.
• Awareness of budget plans and ensuring that management decisions are aligned, with proactive management.
• Manage team and individual expenses to budgets.
• Awareness of China’s Strategic Plans and the team’s responsibility for achieving those goals.
• Approve travel requests, and expense reports in a timely, accurate manner.
Strategic and Tactical Initiatives/Projects:
• Drive improvements for the greater department from strategic initiatives.
• Act as a process improvement driver and presenter.
• Other responsibilities as required.
Fully support C2H (China 2nd Home) strategy
• Actively conduct in - depth market research in China, collaborating closely with local marketing and sales teams to identify unique customer requirements, industry trends, and regulatory features specific to China.
• Lead the customization and localization development of products according to Chinese market demands. This includes optimizing product functions, such as adding features that support Chinese market requirement.