Assistant Technical Manager,NPD

Job Title:

Assistant Technical Manager (NPD)

Role Purpose：

To lead the end-to-end development of sustainable sewing thread and yarn solutions for high-performance speciality industrial applications (Automotive, Personal Protection, and Other Industrial Applications) and drive continuous improvement of existing products. Translate customer feedback or complaints, regulatory trends and market demands into commercially viable new products to strengthen the company’s competitive position and revenue growth.

The scope of this role is for all new products to be produced in China for Asia, and all new products developed in China for transferring to other manufacturing sites in Asia, and all global automotive new product development. 

Principle Accountabilities

• Define the NPD strategy for industrial threads aligned with market trends, customer needs, and business goals.
• Maintain a 1-3 year new product pipeline targeting key applications and customers.
• Develop and continuous improvement on the NPD process and standard procedures.
• Collaborate with Sales/Marketing to gather VOC (Voice of Customer) to identify unmet needs and new product opportunities.
• Partner with Quality team to turn complaint and failure analysis into NPD projects or product upgrading projects.
• Close collaboration with Innovation team and key suppliers on new raw materials, new dyes and chemicals, new finishings and new process technologies, especially those with positive impact on sustainability.
• Lead NPD process with cross-functional teams (Sales, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality) through idea creation, design, sampling, production validation, scale-up and commercialization.
• Ensure NPD projects to meet technical, quality, cost and timeline targets.

Key Activities

• Monitor trends in target industries and benchmark competitor products and patents.
• Use Zenith system to manage NPD projects, keep technical/quality data and track customer/commercial feedback.
• Ensure technical and quality data in Zenith is properly recorded and system status are up to date.
• Translate customer/market needs into technical specifications and conduct feasibility studies.
• Work with Procurement on raw material sourcing and partner with Production for sample/pilot runs.
• Work with Quality to create product specification, failure mode analysis and control plan
• Train Sales and Sales Coordinators on new product and the key selling differentiators.
• Support key customer trials and resolve technical issues post product-launch.
• Develop “quick-fix” solutions for urgent customer complaints and pain-points. 
• Plan and deliver internal product training to the commercial team as well as external Tech Talk/Seminar to key customers.
• Regular visits to key suppliers and exhibitions/trade fairs to capture new trends and technologies in the market.