NPI Operations Program Manager

Flextronics Milpitas, CA 7/1/2012

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Job Description

Category: Operations

Education: Bachelor's Degree

Experience: Senior, 6-10 years of experience

Travel: 20 - 30%

Founded in 1969, Flextronics International Limited has grown into a $30 billion business and become one of the world’s leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers that offers complete design, engineering, and manufacturing services to aerospace, automotive, computing, consumer digital, industrial, infrastructure, medical and mobile OEM customers. With a network of facilities in 33 countries and an employee base of over a 230,000 strong, Flextronics helps customers design, build, ship, and service electronics products worldwide.

PURPOSE:

Flextronics, Integrated Network Solutions (INS) is looking for a New Product Introduction (NPI) Operations Program Manager (Ops PM) to join our team with responsibility for overseeing and communicating the progress of server and storage product development at our Asia-based design centers. This is a key support role within the US-based team. The individual will be the primary channel for daily interaction between the senior-level US team and key project team leaders in Asia and will be responsible for ensuring adherence to schedule and ongoing visibility to US-based team members of the status of engineering, validation, prototyping and NPI activities in Asia for multiple, concurrent design and product-development projects.

This person will establish a regular, repeatable communication process with product team leaders in Asia and lead regular status-review sessions in Mandarin. The NPI Ops PM will report on the status of the projects through a regularly-published action-tracker and/or dashboard template in English to the product-team leaders in the US. S/he will use her/his experience in cross-functional, cross-boundary and cross-cultural teams to constructively engage with Asia-based team members and drive continuous improvement in the following areas: adherence to program schedules and compliance with Flextronics Product Life Cycle (Flex PLC) milestones; focus on design-for-cost and other DFx disciplines; rapid resolution of technical challenges and bugs; identifying and closing gaps in product costs; progression through the NPI process and successful transition of production to a Flextronics factory setting; planning and management of prototype production and allocation of prototype units for specific internal and external teams; and the adoption of sound document-control discipline for ensuring the accuracy of bills of material (BOMs) and delivery of customer-required product configurations.

The NPI Ops PM will be responsible for motivating the product teams to achieve pre-determined cost, quality and delivery targets and will also work closely with peer organizations within the Flextronics organization, such as Marketing, Sales, Business-Development, Materials and Document Control.

Significant travel to and/or stays in Asia of extended duration should be expected.

PRINCIPLE ACCOUNTABILITIES/DUTIES:

Responsible for monitoring, tracking and reporting all aspects of new-product development for server and storage programs.

Serve as the primary US-based interface with Asia-based program-management, hardware-design, software-development and validation engineering teams; providing appropriate direction to Asia-based team members; and communicating in Mandarin.

Coordinate requirements from Marketing, Sales and Business Development team members for prototypes and customer-evaluation units for each product program and ensure project schedules, resources and materials are adequately balanced to ensure timely delivery of prototype systems.

Ensure materials-readiness for prototype builds by communicating customer-specific product-configuration requirements to engineering team members, collaborating with Materials team members and ensuring BOMs are properly structured and published to relevant stakeholders.

Standardize project-tracking processes and provide updates on each program in a clearly-documented, succinct format; as needed, organize and facilitate regular review meetings for each program to communicate progress, challenges and risks and identify resources required to ensure success of each program.

Work closely with Marketing, Sales and Business-Development team members to manage a dynamic product portfolio and set priorities for prototype development, validation activities and resources to ensure the successful, timely launch of various platforms.

Create a sustainable, repeatable prototype-unit tracking mechanism or tool to provide visibility to the allocation/destination/location of prototype or customer-evaluation units.

Manage relationships with local technology partners to ensure materials support for prototype and NPI-phase builds of specific product configurations.

Work closely with Document Control team members to ensure that customer-driven specific configurations for NPI products are properly established in Agile and that correctly-structured bills-of-materials are loaded in Agile.

Engage with local and overseas stakeholders during periods of the day which are most conducive to each set of stakeholders (e.g., communication with Asia team members will require interaction during evening hours—Pacific time zone).

Job Requirements

REQUIRED (MUST-HAVE) QUALIFICATIONS:

5+ years of relevant work experience within the electronics-manufacturing industry and in a program-management role.

Proven ability in managing multiple, concurrent projects with overseas-based (especially Greater Chine) design and production teams.

Demonstrated ability to closely monitor and manage new-product development activities on behalf of locally-based customers with overseas product-design and development groups and to communicate status clearly and proactively to senior-management team members.

Strong knowledge of PCBA and system-integration (“box-build”) processes and technology.

Direct experience with a highly-demanding and process-focused customer base

Outstanding reputation for high achievement in challenging technical settings; work history and ethic that has been recognized by peers.

Excellent project and process management skills with the ability to quickly understand, embrace and adhere to documented product-development processes.

Strong organizational skills—especially with regard to managing and allocating materials for prototype production (PCBAs and systems).

Excellent verbal and written communication skills in both Mandarin and English

Experience in traveling to—and conducting technical business discussions—in Greater China.

BS Degree preferred, MS/MBA preferred

DESIRED (NICE-TO-HAVE) MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Strong awareness of the market dynamics and products in the x86 server and storage market.

Experience with managing BOMs in Agile (or similar architecture).

Knowledge of current server and storage CPU, chipset, networking, controller and power technology.

Experience with mechanical elements of server and storage product design (e.g., sheet metal enclosures, cabling, fans, power supplies).

Flextronics is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer

Job Snapshot

Employment Type Full-Time

Job Type Management, Information Technology

Education 4 Year Degree

Experience At least 5 year(s)

Manages Others Not Specified

Required Travel Not Specified

Job ID 62201

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Company Overview

At Flextronics, impossible is where breakthrough begins. As a socially-responsible, global leader in design, manufacturing, distribution and aftermarket services, Flextronics is unique in its ability to provide end-to-end solutions through its ...
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Contact Information

Milpitas, CA