At Joseph Joseph we love solving everyday problems through intelligent design to create distinctive, functional products that are a pleasure to own and use. We are one of the world’s leading houseware brands with a global presence spanning over 100 countries, available in most major department stores and independent houseware stores worldwide as well as our rapidly growing ecommerce channel.

 Joseph Joseph has been manufacturing products in China for the past 19 years. There is now a fantastic opportunity to further bolster our ‘on the ground’ support team in China to work closely with the New Development and Technologist colleagues at the London (UK) Head Office, and our manufacturing partners in China and Southeast Asia.

This Product Development Coordinator (PDC) role will report to the Head of Quality & Product Compliance at the company head office in London and will be home based when not visited suppliers.

The successful candidate will be required to work closely with the technologists, new product development team, and suppliers in China, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to successfully execute the product development process and deliverables from the pilot production run, through to mass production.

Important: The role will involve frequent travel to Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries, therefore the candidate must be willing to travel at short notice and be happy to be away from home for extended periods of time, and where necessary, quarantine upon arrival back into China.

What you will be doing:

• New Product Development (NPD):
• Perform quality audits on new and existing suppliers, following up on any corrective actions.
• Gain in-depth knowledge of the current product development process from end to end.
• Educate new and existing suppliers in Joseph Joseph’s quality standards and processes.
• Make recommendations to continuously improve processes and identify cost saving initiatives were appropriate.
• Providing ‘on the ground’ support as and when required.
• Support includes:
• Assisting NPD and Technologist to understand the limitations of the supplier’s capabilities on specific projects.
• Assisting NPD and Technologist to drive suppliers to find new manufacturing solutions to problems identified during development.
• Chase missing technical information, such as datasheets and bill of materials
• Ensure critical path deadlines are met for all products
• Pilot Production Run:
• Lead and own the preparation for pilot-run and mass production.
• Responsibility for Pilot Product Run (PPR) including:
• Face-to-face meeting with supplier to review Quality specification documents. All tolerances to be agreed prior to pilot run.
• Ensure correct tooling is used during pilot run (including documenting and photograph tooling), including sub-suppliers
• Ensure correct materials are used for pilot run, checked against the BOM & Datasheets
• Ensure key production parameters are fully documented
• Perform AQL QC Inspection on pilot run (product & packaging), issue inspection report to Technologist
• Select approval samples and lab test samples from Pilot run (if quality meets specified standards) from Pilot run (if quality meets specified standards), 
• Mass Production:
• Perform Gold Seal Selection & Sign-off once 10% of first order is produced and packed
• Oversee first QC inspection with JJ QC Inspectors in China
• Full hand over of products to QC Inspection Team for on-going QC inspections 
• Investigate Critical and Major product issues raised by Suppliers, NPD and Technologists and own the critical path and deadlines to resolve the issues and minimise disruption to the business and growth.

What we need from you:

• Be capable of travelling between China and other Southeast Asian countries, such Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, at short notice, and staying in these countries for an extended period of time.
• Have an excellent working knowledge of injection moulding of plastics, metal casting and forming, and other production techniques used in the homewares industry
• Have an excellent working knowledge of materials used for Joseph Joseph’s products, including plastics, metals, wood and textiles
• Be assertive and decisive individual who is able to quickly identify, assess situations / problems and offer viable, flexible and commercial solutions covering all areas that fall within their remit.
• Be capable of delivering projects on time in line with the critical path.
• Be highly organised with excellent attention to detail
• Be able to use own initiative, be proactive and work independently
• Communicate effectively on: complex issues, specifications with suppliers, technical issues with colleagues in new product development and engineers.

Must also:

• Be resident in Southern China, close to factory base predominantly in Guangdong province.
• Previously worked for innovative Western owned brands
• Previously worked with or reported to head office functions based overseas.
• Minimum of 8 years’ experience within product development, engineering or production and quality assurance teams working on consumer products, with a good understanding of product safety.
• Strong written and spoken English.

What you’ll get from us:

• Competitive Salary
• Working Hours: Monday – Friday (Friday inclusive), 09:00 – 18:00
• Holiday Allowance: 15 days holiday per year (excluding Chinese Public Holidays)
• Company Bonus: Qualify after 12 months employment