Supplier Engineer – Manufacturing Oversight (Atlanta or Birmingham)

at  Southern Company

POSITION SUMMARY

The Supplier Quality team maintains expertise in manufacturing, welding, coating inspection, and the practical use of quality systems. As a Surveillance Program Engineer, you will support Southern Company’s Supplier Quality department on Generation and Transmission projects. This includes new generation projects such as Solar, Battery Storage, Combined Cycle projects, and Hydro power projects. This position will additionally support Transmission’s Power Delivery Grid Modernization/Hardening and the included material and equipment. In this role you will interface with customers, suppliers, and management to ensure the quality of materials and their adherence to Southern Company specifications. This includes visiting suppliers, tracking customer issues, ensuring compliance to corrective actions, and performing surveillances and inspections. You will also be the focal point for communicating supplier corrective actions back to Engineering and Procurement teams.

EDUCATION:

• BS in Engineering, Construction Management, or related 4-year technical degree is required.

EXPERIENCE & SKILLS:

• Experience in manufacturing and/or fabricating required.
• Experience interfacing with customers and suppliers.
• 4+ years of experience in general industry quality or related field.
• Experience developing and delivering presentations to management.
• Previous experience with ISO 9001 / AS9100 a plus.
• Skilled in MS Office including, but not limited to, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Maintain adherence to all safety guidelines.
• Must be able to read and interpret engineering drawings, schematics, and specifications.
• Proactive approach to improving quality through cross functional teams, ensure participation by all team members in continual improvement, and cost reduction activities.
• Possess strong interpersonal skills with an ability to work in a team environment, establishing partnerships both internally and externally.
• Strong problem-solving skills.
• Ability to pivot direction with changing customer needs.

• Provide manufacturing Subject Matter Expertise (SME).
• Monitor supplier quality performance and form partnerships to drive continuous improvement.
• Respond to quality issues and communicate with external suppliers and internal customers.
• Conduct capability assessments and process validations to support supplier selection activities.
• Interface with Engineering and Procurement to ensure suppliers meet Southern Company quality standards.
• Track supplier quality concerns from internal customers and conduct follow-through for timely resolutions.
• Perform inspections and determine acceptability of various equipment and material such as transmission line and substation products (poles, hardware, conductor, etc.), structural steel, transformers, steam turbines, hydro turbines, gas turbines, fans, motors and pumps, and various other power delivery and generation equipment.
• Review suppliers’ Inspection and Test Plans (ITPs).
• Hire and manage 3rd party inspectors to conduct inspections at supplier facilities.
• Review Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Actions for defective materials and make recommendations as needed.
• Analyze non-conformance trends to evaluate effectiveness of corrective actions.
• Participate in or lead problem solving teams as assigned.
• Provide regular updates to the customer on the status of corrective actions.