Job Location: Shenzhen, China, Representative Office.
Reporting to: The President
Business Travel Needs: Overseas-Occasional
Position Expectation
D.light Design is seeking a Director of Production with a passion for rolling out new products that will improve the lives of millions of families. The Director of Production will manage the supply chain, oversee production, drive innovations in cost reduction, maintain quality standards, and facilitate new product introductions.
We expect you to have extensive experience with high volume quality manufacturing. And you must be driven to succeed in a start up environment, including working long hours to propel D.light forward.
Position Description
1. Establish long-term partnerships with contract manufacturers and key suppliers
- Find and vet contract manufacturers and suppliers that meet the quality and cost needs of the company
- Establish contracts that protect the best interest of the company
- Work with factories to continuously improve performance, efficiency and cost
- Negotiate and renegotiate terms and pricing with suppliers
2. Implement quality and cost improvements, while ramping to high volume
- Interact regularly with product design team for feedback on product design improvements
- Work independently to continuously improve efficiency and negotiate with suppliers to reduce the cost of the product without sacrificing quality
- Manage ECR system to ensure smooth integration of product changes
3. New product introductions, from prototyping all the way through to mass production
- Work with product development team to phase new products into production
- Deliver sufficient & accurate production procedures to contract manufacturers
- Coordinate with design teams from an early stage to provide support in pricing, sourcing, and technical feasibility.
4. Maintain quality standards throughout D.light’s supply chain and production
- Ensure products meet reliability specs, and can survive severe conditions common to our customers’ rural villages and lives
- Work with QA Officer and product design team to develop rigorous ongoing reliability testing and in-line testing
5. Build and lead a lean high-performing operations team
- Build and manage a high performing team that can execute on aggressive cost targets and delivery schedules
- Drive performance-oriented culture
- Coordinate with HR for implementing KPI system within team
6. Coordinate production planning and schedule
- Work with contract manufacturers to ensure shipping schedule is met
- Coordinate with sales offices and management to collect forecasts and determine shipment priorities
- Ensure smooth logistics planning
7. Implement Material Resource Planning system
- Ensure accurate tracking of consigned parts and finished goods
- Train team to keep track of materials and WIP daily in MRP system
8. After-Sales Support
- Communicate with sales offices for coordination of spare parts supply based on estimated failure rate of critical components
- Develop training materials to ensure D.light's various sales, after-sales, and marketing teams understand how to easily repair products in the field
- Work with our sales offices and customers whenever complaints arise to quickly determine the root cause of each problem and provide corrective measures.
- Work with product design team to ensure all D.light products are designed from the beginning to be easy to service and have low failure rates.
Qualifications
- Highly entrepreneurial self-starter, able to work independently
- Strategic thinker, able to balance the needs of sales/product design/manufacturing
- Passionate about making kerosene lanterns history and providing families with high quality light
- Fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Ability to multitask, and manage many projects simultaneously
- Minimum BS in Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering
- Advanced degree (MS) and/or professional designation preferred
- 10+ years experience with managing Chinese factories
- Experience with managing Chinese engineers
- Understanding of electromechanical products, and related manufacturing processes (SMT, PCBs, plastic injection molding, etc)
- Experience with LEDs, solar panels, rechargeable batteries, and chargers a plus
- Comfortable with design for low cost and manufacturing
- Energetic, flexible, and able to work with an international team across 3 continents
How to Apply
Please submit an English resume to hr-china@dlightdesign.com.
D.light Design is a fast-growing international consumer products company serving people without access to reliable electricity. Our mission is to enable households without reliable electricity to attain the same quality of life as those with electricity. We will begin by replacing every kerosene lantern with clean, safe and bright light. By 2020, we aim to have improved the lives of 100 million individuals.
D.light was recently named as one of the world’s top 100 clean technology enterprises by the CleanTech Group, and has been featured in Fortune Magazine, Time Magazine, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times. It is financed by prestigious venture capital firms including Nexus India Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Garage Technology Ventures, the Mahindra Group; with investment from leading social enterprise funds, including the Acumen Fund and Gray Matters Capital.
