A mutually rewarding experience.

Work. Realize your ambitions. And realize there’s more to being in business than just making a profit. That’s the Mars philosophy. And the opportunity we offer every one of our Associates. An opportunity to take what you do and make it mean more for you, for those around you and for the planet.  What you get here is challenging, interesting work. You get the tools you need to do a great job and you get to have the best possible people on your side to help you do it. And at the same time as getting to find ways to do business better today than we did it yesterday and driving a great career, you also get to build a more enlightened business and drive sustainability.

Because it’s never just about a single person, a single project or a single brand. It’s about how you can grab everything that’s within your reach here and use it to pursue mutual, long-term gain. It’s about having ideas. And ideals. Being prepared to risk failure because the promise of success means we’ll all be a little better off. It’s that mix of integrity and ambition that makes Mars such a special place to work. And why working here is always about more than just a job.

About Mars, Incorporated 

Mars is a family-owned business with more than a century of history making diverse products and offering services for people and the pets people love. With almost $35 billion in sales, the company is a global business that produces some of the world’s best-loved brands: M&M’s®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, MILKY WAY®, DOVE®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, EXTRA®, ORBIT®, 5™, SKITTLES®, UNCLE BEN’S®, MARS DRINKS and COCOAVIA®. Mars also provides veterinary health services that include BANFIELD® Pet Hospitals, Blue Pearl®, VCA® and Pet Partners™. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars operates in more than 80 countries. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire its more than 100,000 Associates to create value for all its partners and deliver growth they are proud of every day.

 

 

Job Purpose Overview

 

The Supplier Quality Assurance technologist role undertakes the SQA process with suppliers to pro-actively ensure Supplier Quality Systems are in place to meet MARS Q&FS standards and enable the delivery of materials to MARS sites. The principal accountability of this role is to achieve the following benefits:

 

• Knowledge of Mars technical requirements and assurance of the suppliers’ capability to deliver them
• Assess confidence in suppliers capability to meet specification and quality requirements
• Objective supplier performance measurement to drive Continuous Improvement
• Root cause resolution of material technical non-conformances
• Technical development of the supply base to meet future developments
• Alignment of suppliers with the Mars food safety management program

Working as part of the Commercial Supplier Quality Assurance team, the job holder will be developing new and existing suppliers to deliver our growth and commercial targets while ensuring they meet the Mars Global Quality standards. A key requirement of the job is to continually review and drive improvement of these standards through supplier auditing, risk management and influencing the packaging supply base to continually improve their quality performance.  The relationship with internal clients is critical to this role to understand the needs of the business and the technical requirements for packaging material. The job holder will have responsibility for packaging materials from around 30-50 suppliers delivering to all Mars Confectionery sites.

 

Key Responsibilities

• Responsible for the Quality assessment and input of quality standards, Q&FS insights, supplier performance in the selection process to define the right Sourcing strategy for the Packaging supplier base and potential new packaging suppliers for the Mars Confectionery EMEA region
• Assessment and confirmation of supplier capability to meet MARS Quality standards by supplier risk assessment, SQA audit, review of analytical data, verifying supplier hazard controls are operating effectively to ensure all quality, food safety and legal risks associated with packaging, their storage and transport are robustly managed.
• To lead supplier audits, representing Mars in a professional way, motivating suppliers and building technical partnerships to deliver against the SQA quality performance measures.
• Support the supplier to address gaps in Q&FS capability and suggest improvement areas to develop suppliers to meet the right Quality standards.
• Develop technical expertise in the production of packaging and keep up to date with technical developments in the industry that can set new standards and best practises for our suppliers
• Resolve packaging related technical/quality non-conformances through thorough rootcause analysis and defining corrective and preventive actions with the supplier and good follow-through.
• Define ambitious quality targets for the suppliers, and deliver year on year reduction in supplier non-conformance to support factory efficiency. Ensure regular reviews of supplier quality performance with suppliers.
• Drive operational excellence of supplier base against PQM standard.
• Improve internal systems and tools to make quality reporting and data management efficient.
• Support the implementation of the PQM standard by delivering training to internal clients on PQM standard and drive PQM compliance on the supplier part.

 

Context and Scope

•  In the current role SQA Technologist will be primarily focusing on support of Suppliers located in the region
• SQA technologist will work with 17 European MARS  Chocolate and Wrigley Factories as well as providing additional support to sites from other regions
• Role is expected to effectively cooperate within the commercial function, cross regional and cross segment
• Key stakeholders internally are the SSM and Buying operations, Supply, R&D, Q&FS.
• Travel within Europe up to 30-40%
• Flexible Packaging category responsibility

 

Education and Professional Qualifications

• Preferably Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a Science or Engineering discipline or equivalent
• Practitioner of risk management tools & techniques
• 2+ year supplier auditing experience, preferable LRQA lead auditor

 

Knowledge and Experience

• Knowledgeable in quality management tools & techniques experience e.g. SQA, SPC, LEAN, HACCP.
• Experience in facilitation & leading technical work-streams (with suppliers).
• Proven record of problem solving ability using scientific knowledge & principles.
• High learning agility (e.g. To understand and adopt IT systems).
• Good understanding of Packaging and conversion processes.
• Understandings of FMCG supply chain demands
• Experience in project management.
• IT literate, quick to learn & operate new computer based systems.
• Can perform under pressure; handle several high profile projects over the same time line.
• Able & willing to travel within Europe for supplier auditing & meetings upto 40%     

 

 

For further information please contact Cherry Coleman - cherry.coleman@effem.com

 

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Mars is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. The company is pleased to provide such assistance, and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request.