Associate Manufacturing Engineer - Tooling (Western Approach site, Bristol)

The Opportunity

GKN Aerospace, Western Approach is an International Centre Of Excellence in composite wing structure design and production. We manufacture composite wing spars and Fixed Trailing Edge assemblies for the A350XWB and A400M aircraft. We are seeking a new Associate Manufacturing Engineer (ME) to join our 45-strong ME team, specialising in Tooling for the manufacture of composite parts. In this role, you will join a team of 7 Tooling Engineers who develop, maintain and control the deployed tooling suite and who provide a trouble-shooting service in support of our manufacturing processes. 

In this Associate ME role, we will support you to deepen and build upon your knowledge of Tooling solutions so that you can become a Manufacturing Engineer. 

How You'll Contribute

In this role, you will:

• Be responsible for the development, maintenance and repair of the deployed tooling suite, this comprises of mandrels, mould tools, machining fixtures, major assembly jigs and cell specific tooling.
• Provide a trouble shooting service to operations ensuring prompt resolution of issues
• Create a tool preventative maintenance plan (TPM) for the deployed tooling suite, based on data analysis and the engineering requirements.
• Support manufacturing trials in the introduction of production improvements and modification changes.
• Produce project plans to manage small-scale projects in support of the overall plan and create relevant key performance indicators (KPI’s).
• Provide technical support to the Manufacture Engineering and Quality team in product development, first article process, modifications and build process amendments. 

What You'll Bring

To help us make a difference, you’ll bring your passion and expertise/ talent for what you do along with the following skills, experience, qualifications and attributes:

Essential:

• You will have some hands-on experience in the development, maintenance & repair of Tooling solutions within a composite manufacturing arena; ideally this will include tools such as mandrels, mould tools, machining fixtures, major assembly jigs

Desirable:

• Working knowledge of CATIA
• Experience within the aerospace arena

In addition, you will have:

• Good communication skills and an understanding of why they are important
• Experience in identifying opportunities to improve performance
• Experience in the logical analysis and solving of problems

What We'll Provide

Once you’re on board you’ll get the following perks and benefits:

• Starting salary of £30,000 - £34,000
• Industry Leading Pension Scheme = we’ll match your contributions up to 8% on a 1 : 1.5 basis
• Life Assurance 8 x salary
• 25 days' holiday + bank holidays
• Income protection
• Shopping discounts
• Cycle To Work Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• A collaborative, dynamic working environment with support for you to grow your career