Senior Manager, Tooling Footwear

PURPOSE

Key player in Sourcing in driving Sourcing’s vision to be the Most Agile, Most Competitive, Most Digitalized & Cleanest Supply Base in the industry.
Drive and manage tooling team members to drive tooling efficiency and quality in T1 factories, mold shops, and/or component suppliers, and support PCT in future technology, policy development and update.
Manage the tooling creation & tooling manufacturing process within the assigned factory / factory groups with focus on lead time and quality. Ensure adidas innovation technologies and processes are implemented in all factory / factory groups that he / she is responsible for.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Tooling Management

Lead one or more tooling team in the assigned factory / factory groups for tooling related processes in tooling development, commercialization and production and ensure quality, lead times, rejection rate, productivity and price conformity.
Consult and participate in LO Costing team in tooling costing process. Liable for submitting theoretical weight and verifying cycle time for outsole.
Contribute to the adidas lean manufacturing program for mold suppliers from tooling side and implement forecasting & planning tools within local mold suppliers to cut tooling creation & manufacturing lead times.
Ensure T1 tooling data is available and up-to-date in the regional tooling data management system and aiding the further development of the system.
Manage issues related to cross-country mold transfers in terms of transfer times, quality, taxation and further concerns, and support LO, T1 and T2 teams on technical and tooling related issues.

Product Creation Technologies

Assist manufacturing excellence initiatives from a country level.
Lead factories and mold shops to build strong capabilities in the area of CAD creation, rapid prototyping, and mold creation.
In collaboration with PCT team to lead assigned T1 factory / factory groups to publish, establish and evaluate PCT policies, best practices and procedures and identifying improvement opportunities.
Manage biyearly production mold audit, product security, mold shop performance tracking (RFT, OTD) to maintain and enhance tooling data security and mold quality.
Support Regional PCT & Tooling, Asia on creation of PCT documentations, implement and provide operations feedback to enhance existing best practices, policies, guidelines and other process standards.
Provide input and update needed to support tooling allocation among adidas released mold shops.

Training and Administration

Participate in the PCT Technical Training throughout the LO organization to ensure Brand, T1 & T2 staff meet adidas group technical competencies.
Establish well-structured tooling trainings for development/commercialization staffs for technical skills enhancement and for other functional staffs within LO to get a general understanding of technical points.
Creation, administration and facilitation of visitor schedules, managing the timelines and relationships with both visitors and T1s / component suppliers.

Management and General Responsibilities

DPC / DSO during the management of the seasonal tooling allocation to ensure consistent workload and project complexity for adidas released mold suppliers.
Act as an intermediary for escalation of mold cost template complexity issues, tooling transfer issues.
Ensure all sourcing operations and practices fully comply with adidas’ Responsible Sourcing & Purchasing Policy, adidas standards and legal requirements, while managing the relevant processes internally and externally.
Role model leadership to foster a culture of Diversity Equity & Inclusion that strives for an inclusive workplace.

Key Relationships:

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Strong technical knowledge of tooling design, engineering, mold making and manufacturing, CAD, CAM and RP
Excellent technical footwear knowledge of product construction and manufacturing methods
Good knowledge in Lean manufacturing and process automation
Strong presentation, negotiation, influencing, interpersonal and communication skills
Fluent in English (written and spoken)
Strong MS Office Skills, CAD software (eg Rhino or similar CAD software)
Strong leadership skills and ability to work with multidimensional teams

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

University degree in engineering/ materials or related areas
Minimum 7+ years of relevant business experience including Product Development, Engineering, Technical Service and Production

See also