Posted by Mike Costello on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 @ 11:19 AM
Kappa Search is a Chicago employment agency that specializes in engineering, sales, manufacturing, supply chain and technology recruitment and placement. One of our top international clients seeks a Purchasing Manager for North America as follows;
Responsibilities:
• Develops and proposes the purchasing strategy for raw materials to the business management.
- Develops and executes action plans, after approval of the strategy.
• Explore markets for best new supply sources; contacts potential suppliers and negotiates most favorable proposals
- Builds and maintains solid relationships with vendors.
• Responsible for the collection and interpretation of market data that contribute to cost of raw materials that are the purchaser’s direct responsibility and for other materials or suppliers.
• Issues RFQ’s and negotiates supply contracts/agreements consistent with purchasing strategy.
• Evaluates Supplier performance based on price, delivery, quality and service and information received from internal users; acts as a team member in supplier ISO Audits.
• Monitors raw materials forecasts and usage of materials by working with demand planning and plant personnel when needed.
- Acts as liaison with suppliers in case of difficult supply situations or when the supply is interrupted.
• Anticipates and negotiates price changes and develops a thorough knowledge of products and services assigned to purchase.
- Advises purchasing management of industry competitive situations, alternative supply sources, material and service cost trends.
- Builds and maintains a network of business contacts in support of organizational objectives; conducts business in a responsible and ethical manner.
- Performs other related duties as assigned including but not limited to all compliance and ISO audit activities.
- Able to work independently while possessing good oral and written communication skills with the ability to work and communicate with all levels of the organization.
- Must be able to multi-task and work under stressful environment to support the business during critical times.
Requirements:
- Bachelor degree in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Business Management or related field
- Minimum 5 years experience in Purchasing, preferably with chemicals procurement.
- Requires strong negotiation skills, interpersonal, organizational and communication skills.
- Ability to exchange and furnish information requiring detailed explanations and discussions with suppliers and various levels of personnel.
- Strong knowledge of PC applications; working knowledge of SAP.
- Must be able to travel at least 15% of the time
Posted by Mike Costello on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 @ 04:50 PM
Kappa Search Inc., a Chicago employment agency specializing in the recruitment and placement of engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain professionals, seeks a multi-disciplined supply chain professional for an international, industrial client. Responsibilities and requirements as follows:
The objective is to improve levels and optimize efficiency of the operations, to reduce supply chain costs and to establish alignment between company departments.
- Define, execute sourcing strategies for all product categories
- Safeguarding supply market knowledge, market dynamics and developments.
- Sourcing and contracting of key logistic suppliers in close co-operation with the Contract Managers.
• To implement appropriate supply arrangements.
• Gain commitment and ensure alignment.
Supplier Selection:
• Search for potential suppliers and manage a Rfx process.
Contract Negotiation:
• Negotiating, contracting and implementing agreements
Requirements:
- Bachelors Degree
- 5 + years supply chain experience with a global manufacturing company.
Posted by Mike Costello on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 @ 11:41 AM
Kappa Search Inc., a Chicago employment agency specializing in engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain recruitment, is currently recruiting for a Ceramics Engineer for one of our top industrial clients. Responsibilities and requirements as follows:
- Responsible for material characterization, shrinkage control and material quality assurance systems.
- Develop process controls and efficiency of oxide ceramic kilns and non-oxide ceramic vacuum furnaces.
- Responsible for ceramic material failure analysis and related cause analysis and corrective actions
Essential Functions:
- Develops, implements, and improves production/processing methods and controls to meet quality standards in the most cost efficient manner; requires use of moderate decision making skills.
- Receives instruction on specific assignment objectives, points of emphasis, reference and information sources, and possible solutions.
- Assignments include equipment design and development, test of materials, preparation of specifications, process study, research investigations, report preparation and other activities requiring knowledge of principles, practices, and techniques commonly employed in the specific area of assignments.
- Performs work which involves conventional types of plans, investigations, surveys, structures, or equipment with relatively few complex features for which there are precedents.
- Develops estimate and cost guidelines through the use of operation sheets, engineering standards, and manufacturing process knowledge.
- May review completed orders and investigates orders completed above/below initial cost estimates to detect potential problems in the manufacturing process or cost guidelines.
- Develops and maintains written standards on the production processes.
- May supervise other employees.
- May have interaction with customers and suppliers.
- Possesses the ability to enhance the functionality of computer systems to more efficiently perform job tasks.
- Willingly accepts responsibility of sharing skills and knowledge; trains other employees.
- Understands and meets or exceeds quality standards; seeks to minimize error rate.
- Participates in continuous improvement efforts.
- Supports and helps to implement new ideas.
- Performs detail-oriented tasks utilizing very effective communication skills and very high math skills.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Ceramic Engineering or Material Science Requires
- 3+ years experience with Advanced Ceramics
- Experience as a Process or Material Engineer in a production environment.
- Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma Principles and Application
- Leadership experience desired
Posted by Mike Costello on Fri, Aug 27, 2010 @ 12:51 PM
Kappa Search Inc. (KSI) is a Chicago area recruiter specializing in the recruitment and placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and technology professionals in a variety of fields. One of our clients is a well-established leader in the automated packaging industry. This company is in a solid growth mode and is looking to expand their sales force. Sales responsibilities and requirements as follows:
- Will drive profitable sales growth in the automated packaging equipment product offering and product specialist expertise.
- Define business development objectives at targeted accounts
- Establish and achieve specific sales and profit goals
- Acquire and maintain in depth knowledge on automated packaging products and understanding of market drivers within the segment.
- Develop and execute mutually agreed training plans with core suppliers
- Call on existing and prospective customers with purpose of sustaining and growing market share in packaging equipment segment.
- Plan, coordinate and make sales presentations, demonstrating effectiveness
- Coordinate and conduct local training of sales reps, technicians, and equipment specialist on packaging related equipment and materials.
- Identify new products and services to support growth objectives in targeted segments.
- Support corporate marketing communication function with business success stories and new supplier/customer developments.
- Cultivate new alliances with industry business partners (trade associations, adjacent product manufacturers).
Requirements:
- Bachelors degree
- Minimum 8 years packaging materials and/or systems automation experience in packaging segment
- Successful track record developing new business and growing profitable sales through consultative selling
- Demonstrates initiative and ability to work independently
- Excellent relationship management skills
- Strong communication, presentation and negotiating skills
- Experience leading and directing distribution sales channel
Posted by Mike Costello on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 04:41 PM
Kappa Search Inc. is a Chicago employment agency that specializes in engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain recruitment and placement.
We have a current opening in Chicago, IL for a Software Developer with strong drive and experience in web development, web design, development team leadership, application lifecycle development and consulting. This position will require the ability to provide guidance on web development efforts onshore and offshore, as well as work with the client on current and future requirements, designs and technical decisions as they relate to the web portal. Previous experience and a deep understanding of Content Management Solutions is a requirement for this position. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in web development, web design, service oriented software architecture, developer leadership, consulting and back office software experience.
Daily Responsibilities:
Interfaces with the client to gather, define and document software requirements
Analyzes requirement expectations to develop reliable and flexible software design
Drives technical software design and implementation with a hands-on approach, training and providing guidance to the software developers
Proactively raises issues around quality, system performance, or architecture.
Recommends an action plan and communicates issues to management, architects and development managers
Participates in technical design reviews, functional specification reviews and peer reviews; contributes to development project estimates, scheduling, test plans, and code reviews
Coordinates closely with the engineering team to ensure thorough development and testing on relevant platforms as is appropriate for the particular task/project
Provides developer code reviews and quality reviews as it relates to web development
Identify, assess, and develop mitigations to project and process risks Provides guidance and direction to the engineering and development team to ensure development integrity at all layers Mentoring developers
Qualifications:
- Minimum 5 years of experience in web software development
- Minimum 3 years web design
- Minimum 2 years leading US based Onshore developers
- Experience working with Offshore developers
- Strong writing skills and ability to produce high quality documentation
- Exceptional analytical skills required
- Attention to detail and strong follow-up skills are required Can demonstrate ability to work independently and in a team oriented environment
- Can demonstrate knowledge of Content Management System (CMS) Architecture, CMS design and CMS development
- Knowledge of Software Development Lifecycle and Methodologies (waterfall, unified, iterative, agile, etc)
- Knowledge and hands-on experience with J2EE and Web Services (SOAP, WSDL).
- Knowledge of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design
- Ability to lead developers in a common design
- Knowledge of UML/RUP/Use Cases/OOAD/J2EE/MVC based web development/STRUTS/Design Patterns
- Experience mentoring developers on OO/web projects
Posted by Mike Costello on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 04:01 PM
Kappa Search Inc., a Chicago employment agency that specializes in engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain recruitment, is currently recruiting for a CAD designer for one of our high-tech clients. Requirements as follows:
REQUIREMENTS:
- 5 + years E/M design experience with 3D CAD modeling.
- Inventor CAD is preferred but SolidWorks and/or Pro/E Wildfire is acceptable.
- Tooling design is a plus.
- Familiarity with machining, welding, mills & lathes.
- Understanding of tolerancing and stack-ups.
- Sheet metal forming knowledge
- Understands BOM structuring, document control and configuration management.
- Solid grasp of geometry and trigonometry.
- Development of P&ID's
Posted by Mike Costello on Tue, Aug 24, 2010 @ 11:30 AM
Kappa Search Inc., a Chicago employment agency specializing in engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain recruitment, is currently recruiting for several Software Engineers for one of our top technology clients. Responsibilities and requirements as follows:
We are looking for talented, motivated software engineers to join our team with the following skills.
- As a front-end engineer, you will focus on creating compelling, functional user interfaces.
- 3+ years experience working with ASP.NET in C#, with a focus on front-end development
- Strong OOP skills.
- Strong HTML, CSS,JavaScript, and Ajax skills.
- Good understanding of security and performance techniques
- Web applications in .net with VB as the target language- for 6 months -with min 2 years of experience developing Object-Oriented enterprise Web applications in .net with VB as the target language.
- Java developers with a lot of Banking experience
- 5 + years with C#, C++ Scripting languages
- Experience in building financial trading applications
- Business knowledge/experience a plus
- Strong communication (written & verbal)
- Independent & mature.
Posted by Mike Costello on Mon, Aug 23, 2010 @ 04:16 PM
Kappa Search Inc., a Chicago employment agency specializing in engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain recruitment, is currently recruiting for a Sr. Project Manager for one of our infrastructure clients. Responsibilities and requirements as follows:
Title: Senior Project Manager, Water and Wastewater.
- Municipal wastewater treatment plant and linear infrastructure (collection and distribution piping and pump stations) study and design experience.
- Will direct design work as well as providing QA/QC of other's work.
- High energy with pleasant and professional demeanor.
- Requires strong mix of business development, technical, business management and interpersonal skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including strong presentation skills.
- Proven track record managing projects profitability.
- Capable of simultaneously managing multiple projects.
- Demonstrated understanding of the need for proper project documentation.
- Comfortable making initial calls and visits with existing and prospective clients, and writing
- Must have worked in a consulting firm and understand the consulting firm business model proposals.
REQUIREMENTS:
BS in Civil Engineering required. MS preferred. Florida PE with 15+ years’ experience.
LEED certification a plus.
This position is in Tampa, FL.
Relocation assistance provided.
Posted by Mike Costello on Fri, Aug 20, 2010 @ 11:53 AM
Kappa Search Inc., a Chicago recruiter specializing in engineering, technology, sales, manufacturing and supply chain recruitment, is currently recruiting for a Traffic Engineering Specialist for one of our international clients. Responsibilities and requirements as follows:
- Prepare and analyze traffic reports.
- Provide traffic and revenue analysis
- Prepare traffic and revenue forecasts
- Undertake traffic engineering analysis including LOS calculations
- Manage a database containing traffic and demographics data
- Review existing and future development plans
Requirements:
- Bachelors degree required. Engineering, Economics or Transportation focus preferred
- 2-3 years of experience with traffic and revenue forecasting
- Well versed in quantitative analysis
- Software experience with MS-Office, Transportation planning software and Data Warehouse systems.
- Thorough understanding of transportation planning and engineering.
Posted by Mike Costello on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 @ 01:49 PM
Kappa Search Inc. is a Chicago employment agency that specializes in engineering, manufacturing, technology, sales and supply chain recruitment and placement. Our client, a Fortune 100 manufacturer, seeks a talented QA professional for the following opportunity.
JOB SUMMARY:
The Quality Assurance Engineer manages process improvements in the areas of Quality Assurance, Production and Manufacturing. Also provides Quality Management Systems support, supplier qualification and monitoring, Process Improvements and Corrective and Preventive actions.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Conduct analysis and develop proposals for product and processes related continuous improvement projects
- Manage quality metrics and take actions to address undesirable trends. Coordinate Customer Satisfaction Surveys.
- Audits of quality procedures and functions. Writes procedures and work instructions.
- Work Closely with Production Engineering, Materials and Manufacturing to address issues
- Establish methods for improving Quality through the development and review of Standard Operating Procedures, Quality Standards and Process and Production Control techniques Application of Six Sigma Methodologies such as Process Mapping, FMEA, DOE, Gage R&R
- Conduct internal and external Quality System investigations and audits
- Develop and implement Manufacturing improvements and methodologies, Kaizen
- Maintain Corrective and Preventive action system, Approved Supplier List, Certifications, Specifications, Calibration Systems, etc.
- Develop and analyze statistical data in order to provide recommendations to achieve favorable yield levels and product conformance to specifications
- Review and monitor Quality Control inspections and tests for trend analysis
- Publish statistical data for management review
REQUIREMENTS:
o BS degree in Engineering.
o Minimum five (5) years experience QA/QC in manufacturing /assembly environment.
o Working knowledge of E/M products
o Proficiency utilizing MS Access, PowerPoint, Excel and Word o Working knowledge of relational data bases and Quality Information Systems
o Lean, 5S and Six Sigma certification highly desired.
o ASQ CQE Preferred