Manufacturing quality engineers play a vital role in ensuring factory output meets design specifications. Industrial companies want talented professionals working in QA to improve quality and efficiency while also reducing costs. If this engineering role intrigues you as a career, an excellent interview performance helps earn that coveted job offer.
With a goal of a successful engineering job search, check out these common interview questions for manufacturing QA. Use this information to study before your big day, ensuring you answer all the interviewer’s queries clearly and confidently. As a result, expect to continue on a lucrative career path lasting until your retirement day.
Describe How to Vet a New Product
Ensuring the overall quality of a brand new manufacturing product remains one of most important tasks for QA engineers. After all, something never before built tends to have more defects than a product with an established history. Advanced product quality planning principles (APQP) lie at the heart of any good answer. So make you closely study the concepts of APQP before your interview. Also mention your tangible experience with APQP earlier in your career.
Explain Performing a First Article Inspection
Manufacturing quality engineers typically perform a first article inspection (FAI) after an initial production run. It also occurs after any modification to the production process. In short, this is a critical process in manufacturing QA. Be able to answer this question with confidence peppered with meaningful examples of conducting FAIs throughout your work history.
What is Your Experience With Fault Tree Analysis?
Fault tree analysis remains a critical technique for vetting the reliability and safety of any manufacturing process. Again, this is another concept familiar to experienced manufacturing quality engineers. Describe how you leverage this technique to test the failure modes in your production systems. Ultimately, one malfunctioning part must not take down the entire system. Clearly explain this concept, once again using your previous experience in this area.
How Do You Use Technology to Perform Your Job?
Like many other engineering roles, technology plays a crucial role in the duties of a manufacturing quality engineer. For example, the interviewer might want to understand your affinity for using ERP software like SAP. Additionally your experience with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is also relevant. Your exposure to relevant software and tech tools is likely detailed on your résumé. So go into more detail by providing practical examples of your experience in this area if questioned.
If you need help finding work in manufacturing QA, contact the experienced recruiters at Venteon. As one of the top engineering staffing agencies in the Midwest, we know the companies looking for talented candidates. Connect with us soon!