Quality Senior Specialist Process Improvement
Baker Hughes · Red Bluff
Quality Senior Specialist Process Improvement
Are you passionate about driving quality excellence and reducing the Cost of Poor Quality through proactive prevention and continuous improvement?
Do you enjoy working with cross-functional teams to solve complex quality challenges, eliminate systemic issues, and deliver measurable business impact?
Partnering with the best
The FCSS Cost of Quality Improvement Leader is responsible and accountable for reducing Cost of Poor Quality across FCSS businesses, sites and functions. The role is execution-led, spending the majority of its time at the point of impact leading strategic improvement, removing systemic causes and resolving significant customer escapes, rather than producing routine reports.
The role establishes clear ownership, measurement and action across the Cost of Quality categories, prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure, with a deliberate shift towards prevention: identifying risk early, strengthening controls and eliminating failure modes before they create defects, escapes or customer impact.
A core responsibility is to use Cost of Quality data, risk signals, lessons learned and Management of Change to anticipate where failures may occur and strengthen design, supplier, process and service controls before cost is incurred. Where failures or customer escapes do occur, the role can be deployed across FCSS to lead or facilitate rapid containment, customer protection, rigorous root-cause analysis, effective corrective action, cross-business learning and verified sustainment.
Fueling your passion
As FCSS Cost of Quality Improvement Leader, you will be responsible and accountable for:
Cost of Quality Strategy, Governance & Leadership
- Defining and deploy the FCSS Cost of Quality strategy and multi-year prevention and reduction roadmap, aligned with business priorities, product and process risk, and annual operating plans.
- Establishing common definitions, data standards, ownership and governance for prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure costs.
- Creating transparency of the Cost of Quality baseline, trends, emerging risks, systemic failure modes and business impact across FCSS.
- Leading a forward looking operating rhythm that reviews leading indicators, risk exposure, prevention actions and control effectiveness alongside realised failure cost.
- Partnering with Quality, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Services and Finance to assign accountable owners and act before identified risks become defects or escapes.
- Directing prevention and appraisal investment towards the controls with the strongest evidence of reducing failure cost and customer risk.
Cost of Poor Quality Reduction Portfolio
- Maintaining a single, prioritised portfolio combining preventive opportunities and realised Cost of Poor Quality, ranked by risk, potential financial exposure, customer impact, recurrence and delivery feasibility.
- Identifying high risk products, processes, suppliers and changes before failure by using risk assessments, weak signals, audit findings, process capability and historical lessons.
- Strengthening preventive controls such as design and process reviews, FMEA, control plans, supplier assurance, error proofing, capability improvement and verification at critical control points.
- Targeting major internal and external failure costs, while requiring actions to address the conditions that allowed the failure to occur and escape.
- Ensuring initiatives have evidence based risk or problem statements, baselines, targets, accountable owners and robust preventive or corrective controls.
- Tracking delivery, control effectiveness and sustainment, with avoided-cost assumptions and realised savings evidenced through agreed Finance governance.
Cost of Quality Data, Analysis & Performance Management
- Using the standard Cost of Quality dashboards and reporting framework developed and maintained by the Industrial Products Cost Leader; do not duplicate routine data preparation or reporting activity.
- Converting dashboard insight rapidly into a small number of prioritised strategic improvements, with clear owners, actions, milestones and expected business outcomes.
- Spending the majority of role capacity leading problem solving, working with teams at the point of impact, implementing preventive and corrective controls, and removing barriers to delivery.
- Using trend, recurrence, capability and risk analysis to identify systemic priorities and direct resources before losses materialise.
- Partnering with the Industrial Products Cost Leader only where data gaps or targeted analysis are required, while retaining accountability for converting insight into measurable improvement.
- Keeping governance concise and decision-focused, using existing operating reviews and QBRs to confirm priorities, remove barriers, secure ownership and evidence results.
- Building leadership capability to interpret Cost of Quality insight and take action without creating additional reporting layers.
Customer Escapes, Structured Problem Solving, Lessons Learned & Management of Change
- Acting as the FCSS expert and escalation point for structured problem solving, with the authority to lead, facilitate or assure the response to any significant customer escape or systemic quality issue.
- Ensuring immediate customer protection and effective containment, with clear ownership, governance, communication and escalation through to verified closure.
- Deploying a common, risk-based problem-solving framework and select the right method for the issue, including 3C, 5 Why, A3, 8D and DMAIC, supported by preventive tools such as FMEA and control plans.
- Coaching and challenge cross-functional teams to define the problem from evidence, verify occurrence and escape root causes, implement systemic countermeasures and complete independent effectiveness checks.
- Coaching teams to identify and mitigate failure modes during design, industrialisation, supplier selection, process change and service planning, not only after a defect occurs.
- Establishing a disciplined lessons-learned process that captures learning from defects, customer escapes, near misses and successful prevention and applies it across relevant products, processes, suppliers and sites.
- Embedding lessons learned at the front end of new product, process, supplier and change activity through updated standards, risk assessments, design reviews, control plans, training and verification.
- Strengthening Management of Change so product, process, supplier, system and organisational changes are risk-assessed early, approved with defined controls, implemented, verified and monitored through stabilisation.
- Using recurrence, repeat escape, near miss and control effectiveness reviews to confirm that preventive and corrective controls remain effective and sustained.
Examples of Key Result Areas and Relevant KPIs:
Cost of Quality Performance
- Cost of Poor Quality reduction versus baseline and operating plan
- Reduction in internal and external failure costs
- High-risk failure modes prevented before customer impact
Reduction Delivery & Financial Benefits
- Priority improvements delivered to target and milestone
- Finance-validated savings delivered and sustained
- Speed from identified issue to verified result
Customer Escape Response, Problem Solving, Lessons Learned & Change Control
- Significant customer escapes contained and closed on time
- Corrective actions independently verified as effective
- Repeat escapes and recurring failure modes reduced
- Lessons learned and change controls implemented across affected areas
Governance & Capability
- Majority of role capacity deployed on improvement delivery
- Actions closed on time with accountable ownership
- Capability built through active coaching and problem solving
To be successful in this role you will:
- Have bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Quality, Operations, Business or a related technical field, or equivalent relevant experience.
- Have minimum 5 years’ experience in Quality, Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence or related leadership roles.
- Demonstrated experience analysing and reducing Cost of Poor Quality across prevention, appraisal, internal failurPe and external failure categories.
- Have proven record of leading complex, cross functional problem solving for customer escapes and systemic quality issues, delivering verified corrective action, financial benefit and improved customer outcomes.
- Have strong knowledge of quality cost models, structured problem solving, corrective and preventive action, lessons learned and Management of Change.
- Have experience leading in a matrixed, multi-business environment and influencing without direct authority.
- Have strong financial, analytical, facilitation, coaching and stakeholder-management skills.
- Have Clear executive and frontline communication, with the ability to translate quality and cost data into decisions, ownership and action
Desired:
- Have Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or higher.
- Have experience delivering large scale transformation, harmonization or cross business improvement programs.
- Have experience in multi-site or global operations.
Work in a way that works for you
We recognize that everyone is different and that the way in which people want to work and deliver at their best is different for everyone too.
Working with us
Our people are at the heart of what we do at Baker Hughes. We know we are stronger when our people are developed, engaged, and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work. We invest in wellbeing, capability development, and leadership growth across all levels.
Working for you
Our innovations have transformed the energy industry for over a century. To continue progressing, we look for individuals who embrace change and contribute to building the future.
What You Can Expect
- Contemporary work-life balance policies and wellbeing activities
- Comprehensive private medical care options
- Safety net of life insurance and disability programs
- Tailored financial programs
- Education assistance
- Generous parental leave
- Mental health resources
- Dependent care support
- Additional elected or voluntary benefits
This position requires valid work authorization in the country of employment. The employer is unable to sponsor work authorization for this role at any time.
You will be eligible to participate in Company-sponsored benefit programs, including health & welfare programs and the Thrift Plan (401k). You will have a choice of coverage options that best suit your needs. Coverage options and contribution amounts are related to your benefit elections, base salary level, and specific requirements of each of these plans.
This position is eligible for our comprehensive and competitive benefits package, which can be found here, and is further eligible for additional forms of compensation such as bonuses subject to the terms of the applicable benefit plans or policies.
The Baker Hughes internal title for this role is: Quality Senior Team leader - Process Improvement