As North America’s #1 home fire safety brand, Kidde's mission is to provide solutions that protect people and property from the effects of fire and its related hazards. For more than 100 years, people have relied on Kidde to deliver superior fire detection and suppression.  

About this role   

We are currently seeking a qualified candidate for the role of Product Safety Officer. 

In this role you will recommend Quality Assurance strategies to achieve medium to long-term organizational goals. May be a senior individual contributor or Quality Assurance leader with dotted line reports. Conducts extensive investigation and analysis for the resolution of complex problems and communicates with senior leadership on Quality Assurance strategy. 

You will provide leadership and coordination of the KGS global product safety personnel (~10 employees), Product and Services Safety (PASS) program and New Product Development (NPD) product safety risk management and promoting a culture of product safety. Key skills include organization, project management, reporting, and training for global KGS product safety leaders and teams. Engagement with leadership, engineering, quality, supply chain, manufacturing, and field personnel is necessary to ensure the value stream resolves potential product safety issues in a timely manner and proactively identifies and controls product safety critical activities and features. 

Key Responsibilities  

• Identification and priority of project tasks, timeline, and resources 

• Application of robust quality analysis tools (e.g. Ishikawa, 5-whys, Red X, 6 sigma) to identify root cause and validate mistake proof solutions 

• Performance of potential safety risk assessment 

• Development and presentation of options for field action to KGS PASS council and leadership teams 

• Track and drive progress of PASS incidents (using Enablon and PowerBI dashboards) and ensure compliance with regulatory, internal, and external field communication and remediation tracking. 

• Maintain and improve KPIs to ensure the overall health of the product safety program 

• Drive continuous improvement processes to the product safety program 

• Ensure functioning feedback loop of product safety lessons learned (utilizing iZone) for future robust design and continuous improvement efforts 

• Provide oversight, training and leadership to cross functional KGS teams for NPD product safety deliverables (including safety aspects of PFMEA, Safety Review, Hazard Assessments, and new technology safety assessments) and KGS HQ level product safety reviews to ensure potential safety risks are identified and mitigated prior to product launch 

• Partner with quality and operations teams to ensure processes are certified and controls are in place to monitor critical to safety characteristics 

• Promote a product safety culture including training of the global KGS businesses in the identification, resolution management, and reporting process for potential product safety concerns. 

• Report KPIs monthly through the engineering dashboard and review progress, risks, and continuous improvement activities quarterly with KGS PASS council and leadership team 

• Recommends changes or enhancements to critical Quality Assurance strategies, including plans, guidelines, policies, and processes to ensure the achievement of Quality targets 

• Performs substantial development of new organization projects and processes to ensure overall quality is continuously improving 

• Provides expertise in production process analysis, ensuring quality standards are met and making recommendations for key quality improvements 

• Drives collection and analysis of quality information from multiple sources to develop long-term quality strategy and programs 

• Leads quality improvement processes to ensure on-going reductions in Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) and escapes 

Basic Qualifications  

• Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Science, or Safety Management 

• 10+ years of experience in Manufacturing or Engineering  

 Preferred Qualifications  

• Masters Degree in Engineering Certification/experience in a recognized problem solving methodology (e.g. certified QE, RedX, 6 sigma) and program management 

• Experience collaborating and developing a global team of indirect reports 

• Project management skills and execution 

• Background in process management and/or robust quality tool and methods 

• Understand and apply knowledge of mechanical, chemical, electrical, software, hardware or materials 

• Implement lessons learned continuous improvements and standardize processes 

• Influence and work effectively across all levels of the organization from working level engineering to C-Suite presentations 

• Highly organized with a attention to detail while also able to prioritize key tasks 

• Strong interpersonal communication skills and a successful track record, both written and verbal, across a wide audience 

• Outstanding follow-up and follow-through skills 

• Self-starter, learn quickly and work independently