MES Manufacturing Engineer

Location: Brugg/Nidau, Switzerland Coverage: Day shift, with on-call escalation support for production

Position Summary

The MES Manufacturing Engineer is the site's primary point of contact for STAAR Surgical's custom Manufacturing Execution System (MES). This is a hands-on role: the individual spends most of the day on the production floor with operators in manufacturing, packaging, and shipping, resolving issues at the workstation and acting as the liaison to the IT service desk and the MES development team. The role requires practical knowledge of the order-to-production life cycle, from the ERP order through work order creation and the job pull sheets sent to the MES, and a working technical understanding of the MES database and its interface with Oracle ERP. The engineer translates what operators need into clear technical requests, and system changes back into training and documentation.

Key Responsibilities

End-User Support and Issue Resolution

· Provide first-line MES support to operators, leads, and supervisors; resolve issues at the point of use and escalate those beyond scope with complete, accurate detail.

· Perform technical diagnosis: review application and interface logs, run approved read-only queries, verify work order and transaction status, and apply basic configuration changes under change control.

· Support the floor hardware the MES runs on: Windows tablets and desktops, barcode scanners, and label printers (SATO, Printronix, Zebra).

· Monitor MES availability and its ERP interfaces (work order release, job pull sheets, operation and material transactions, serial numbers) and initiate restoration when disruptions occur.

· Track issues through to closure, communicate status to affected stakeholders, and maintain an issue log to identify recurring problems and trends.

· Provide on-call escalation support outside day shift per the site's coverage schedule.

Technical Diagnosis, Data Integrity, and ERP Interface

The role requires understanding how an operator action is recorded in the SQL Server database, how it is sent to Oracle ERP through Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC), and how issues are corrected under STAAR's quality system.

· Debugging: Reproduce issues in a non-production environment, trace operator actions to the underlying tables and audit records, and determine whether the cause is an application defect, data error, configuration issue, or interface failure.

· Code and database: Read logs, queries, and source code well enough to find where a behavior originates, and write defect reports with the evidence developers need (steps to reproduce, affected work orders and serial numbers, query results, screenshots).

· Oracle interface: Investigate MES-to-Oracle discrepancies by reviewing interface staging records, their status, and Oracle error messages; reconcile quantities across operations; and coordinate corrections with the ERP team so transactions are not sent twice.

· Service desk: Keep tickets in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus current with diagnosis, actions taken, and timely status updates; track issues to closure and write knowledge-base articles for recurring problems.

· Nonconformances (NC): Support NCs for system and data issues: identify affected work orders, lots, and serial numbers, contribute to root-cause analysis, and prepare or execute approved data corrections with before-and-after evidence to protect Device History Record integrity.

Liaison, Requirements, and Change Control

· Translate operator needs into clear, prioritized requests for the service desk, MES developers, or vendors, and represent the site's operational perspective in release planning, communicating the business implications of proposed solutions to operations leadership.

· Participate in root cause analysis of application failures and interface discrepancies and help implement corrective and preventive measures.

· Gather and document business requirements for MES enhancements and fixes across the order, work order, packaging, and shipping flows, with process flow charts where needed.

· Define test scenarios with end users, execute and support user acceptance testing, confirm changes meet specifications before release, and monitor system performance afterward.

· Follow STAAR's change control and electronic QMS (Kneat), applying ISO 13485 / QMSR, 21 CFR Part 11, ALCOA+, and SOX IT general controls to every production change.

Training, Documentation, and Continuous Improvement

· Create and deliver user guides, work instructions, and training, and coach operators at their workstations on new functionality as the site's MES subject matter expert.

· Document support processes and known-issue workarounds for handover to the service desk.

· Identify opportunities to improve MES reliability, usability, and production efficiency, and keep leadership and users informed of system changes.

· Maintain a working understanding of STAAR-specific technologies, business processes, and ERP manufacturing concepts as they interface with the MES.

· Undergraduate degree and 6-8 years relevant experience or Graduate degree and 4-6 years relevant experience.

· [3–5] years supporting manufacturing applications and floor hardware in a production environment; MES and ERP experience are strongly preferred.

• Experience supporting end users directly on a production floor across manufacturing, packaging, and shipping operations.

• Practical knowledge of the order-to-production life cycle (ERP order entry, work order creation, job pull sheets) and of ERP manufacturing modules.

• Experience supporting Windows client/server applications backed by Microsoft SQL Server, with working T-SQL proficiency and the ability to relate application behavior to the data model; reading C#/.NET code is a plus.

• Understanding of MES-to-ERP integration, ideally Oracle ERP and Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC): staging tables, transaction statuses, and error handling.

• Experience with Windows tablets, barcode scanners, and industrial label printers (SATO, Printronix, Zebra) in a manufacturing setting.

• Experience in a regulated medical device environment: change control, validation practices, and documentation discipline, including nonconformances, root-cause analysis, and service desk tickets.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to prioritize competing demands from the production floor.

• Excellent communication skills, able to explain technical matters to operators and business context to engineers; fluent in English; German and French a plus.