Electrical & Electronics Systems Manager

Ocado’s Product Development team is revolutionising the next wave of automation within engineering and growing rapidly as a result. With multiple highly-automated Customer Fulfilment Centres (CFCs) required in the UK and internationally over the next few years, we're creating 'products of the future' to deliver results to our customers. Our Product Development team is at the forefront of this - taking our new products from the design phase through to manufacture, and therefore is a truly rewarding area of the business to be a part of.

Due to this growth, we're now looking for an Electrical & Electronics Systems Manager to join us. This person will be responsible for managing a team of engineers (around 15 to 20) that look after the design of electro-mechanical machines and products that are required for systems in our CFCs. This position would be suited to an accomplished electrical and/or electronics Manager who has demonstrable people management skills, as well as practical experience in the design of electrical and/or electronic sub-systems. 

With an understanding of CAD tools and exposure to a wide variety of manufacturing process and materials, the successful applicant would be expected to have a strong knowledge of factors that drive design quality, and a 'hands on' approach when it comes to designing products themselves. We're looking for a self-motivated team player that can work effectively in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment. Due to the growing nature of our business, flexibility with regards to travel to attend meetings/conferences (both in the UK and internationally) will be important.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead a team of design engineers and CAD engineers who are responsible for designing electrical and electronic products for complex automation systems
• Visit relevant sites and work with site teams to identify issues, solutions and improvements required on current products
• Define, delegate and report status of the Work Breakdown Structure
• Maintain the engineering quality and integrity of the work produced within the mechanical design teams’ work package
• Actively engage in new product development, cost reduction opportunities and continuous improvement for current products
• Review input specification, co-ordinate various design reviews and design output reviews
• Deep dive into the design details and guide teams to identify and mitigate risk via modelling, proof of concept, simulation etc
• Help design engineers to carry out transfer of design from engineering to manufacturing
• Drive design quality and improvements for internal and any designs contracted out to external vendors.
• Co-ordinate with external vendors who will be involved in various design and development work with the teams.
• Co-ordinate or represent mechanical design team in various meetings
• Develop, follow or contribute to best practice and guideline documentations of the organisation and the mechanical design team
• Review various standards as applicable for the design and safety, and ensure that all designs conform to the requirements
• Practical experience and thorough knowledge of applying the standards relating to the Machinery Directive
• Support team in generating the supporting calculations required for a Technical File and Certification (CE, UL CSA or other)
• Proficient in understanding the effects of the accumulated variation i.e tolerance stack up and manufacturing tolerances.
• Support design manager for the day to day supervision of direct reports (including 1-on-1 meetings, team meetings, timesheet authorisation, holiday approval, sickness/absence meetings, goal and objective setting, personal development plans & appraisal reviews)
• Support the Design Manager in continuous improvement & best practice activities, including setting up systems, processes, tools to maximise the efficiency, quality of output and agility of the engineering team

Skills/experience required:

• Experience in designing and developing products from concept to production within an electro-mechanical design environment
• Credible experience in leading similar sized teams
• Involved with release of products into manufacturing and stabilising designs, also in a new product development environment
• Experience of approving and signing off drawings
• Experience of problem solving and root cause analysis
• Set electrical and electronics engineering best practice within the product development team
• Demonstrated ability to support/manage both internal and external design resources
• Will have at least an Engineering Degree in Engineering or equivalent.
• Previous skills in computer aided design (CAD) preferably using Altium, EPlan or similar software
• Experience of delivering work packages to time and budget constraints

Preferred (in addition to minimum):

• Design of automated material handling systems
• Experience in design for manufacturing and virtual assembly
• Fully conversant with relevant regulatory and safety standards to design CE / UL and CSA compliant products
• Experience of system/component reliability and working with predictive models (reliability block diagrams)

Benefits Package

• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Private Medical Insurance
• 23 days holiday, increasing to 25 with 3 years’ service
• Employee Assistance Program
• Free Shares
• Opportunity to participate in Sharesave and Buy as You Earn schemes
• Discounted shopping on Ocado.com, Smart Pass and destination site

DISCLAIMER: This is not necessarily an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, skills, efforts, requirements or working conditions associated with the job. While this is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current job, management reserves the right to revise the job or to require that other or different tasks be performed as assigned.

 This role may require travel to other sites.