Project Lead for Product Development – LLV (Low Speed and Light Vehicle)

Industry: Engineering

Company: Yamaha Motor Manufacturing

Overview

Position Summary:

Yamaha Motor Manufacturing Corporation (YMMC) has an excellent opportunity for an experienced project lead to join the LLV PD (Low Speed and Light Vehicle Product Development) team in Newnan, GA. The Project Lead will be a leader and a key part of the LLV PD team to successfully steer and lead projects in the LLV Division from concept to production. This includes all the Yamaha LLV product lines, Low Speed Vehicle, Golf Car, PTV (Personal Transportation Vehicles) and Light Utility Vehicle. This will include managing the scope, cost, schedule, and risks related to the specific project(s). Other adjacent activities and responsibilities that will be under the responsibility of this role are meeting cost reduction targets, maintaining Yamaha quality standards, and ensuring on time product launch all while leading a cross functional team. This is a highly visible role within the LLV division that will lead the future direction of the product line.

Responsibilities

Job Responsibilities:

As a Project Lead in the LLV PD team you will:

• Manage projects that involve electrical, mechanical/materials, and manufacturing engineering, among other engineering disciplines in combination with project management tasks like schedule creation and management, oral and written communication, production planning for product prototyping activities, cost management, and leadership.
• Lead communication with engineering teams in company global headquarters in Japan for project scope and schedule coordination.
• Lead other cross functional team members in the technical direction to integrate vehicle systems.
• Be comfortable with providing direction and expectations to other cross functional team members while maintaining positive relationships with all team members and stakeholders.
• Lead project through development process including major milestones and changepoints.
• Manage schedule, cost, project scope and project risks.
• Able to lead team through root cause analysis process and identify countermeasures along with recovery plans.
• Improve the Product Development process and follow Quality Assurance process throughout development.
• Plan, lead and present project plans to cross functional management including executive level members.
• Plan, track, and forecast capital spending to ensure accurate usage of company resources including capital funding process.
• Ensure timely and accurate documentation of project/product issues and manage the resources so issues are addressed and closed.
• Lead the concurrent engineering process to enable timely development feedback to all project and product stakeholders.
• Individual contributor of LLV Product Development Division.

Qualifications

Other Required Skills:

To successfully perform your job, we feel you need to:

• Bring a positive attitude and maintain a growth mindset.
• Have a mentality of ownership and sense of perseverance to engage and overcome technical and nontechnical issues and challenges.
• Collaborate and work with LLV Test team and engineers to maintain and grow LLV capabilities and positive relationships.
• Have experience with leading project scope, schedule, and cost of multi-disciplinary project and leading a cross functional team that is made up of Manufacturing Engineering, Product Development/Engineering, Product Planning, Executive Leadership, Quality, Reliability Engineering, Cost Planning, and others as needed.
• Have project experience communicating technical scope and design requirements to a technical and nontechnical stakeholder base.
• Have project experience managing daily activities while being able to plan and create a vision for months or years ahead as needed.
• Be comfortable with taking direction from technical and business leaders as well as providing direction and plans to cross functional team members.
• Be able to communicate across and vertically within a global organization that resides across cultures, geographical time zones, languages, technical disciplines, and various levels of leadership.
• Be able to manage and lead through ambiguous and “not perfect data” situations yet, define a path for the project and the cross functional team as well as have an ability to clearly communicate the direction.
• Be able to receive feedback in a positive way and have a growth mindset.

Preferred Skills:

The following skills will be additionally great to have in this role but not required:

• Ability to visualize and plan multiple technical tasks 1-18 months out into future per overall project needs.
• PMI (Project Management Institute) training or certification for PMP or CAPM
• Fluent in Japanese and English language
• Experience in electrical vehicle product or project management.
• Experience in lithium battery product or project management.
• Experience with Agile project management methodologies.
• A team player that can be flexible yet focused and disciplined to reach product launch on time, within cost, and deliver full scope.
• A team player and leader that brings the team with them and not reach the finish line by themselves.

Education / Experience:

• BS degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, or relevant field.
• 4-6 years’ experience in a project leadership role managing complete vehicle or major system integration.
• Automotive, electric vehicle or similar project or product experience is ideal.
• 4-6 years’ experience leading projects with electromechanical scope.