Experience: 5–8 Years

Industry: Rubber / Elastomers / Rubber Products

Department: New Product Development

Position: Senior Engineer – NPD

Location: Kuruli

Reporting To: Factory Manager

Job Purpose To lead and execute new product development activities for rubber products from concept to successful production, ensuring the products meet customer requirements, quality standards, cost targets, and timelines.

Key Responsibilities

- Handle end-to-end New Product Development (NPD) activities from customer requirement/technical specifications through trials, validation, and commercialization.
- Study customer drawings, specifications, standards, and application requirements and convert them into product and process requirements.
- Develop and optimize rubber compounds, including selection of polymers, fillers, plasticizers, curing systems, and additives as applicable.
- Coordinate with R&D;, Quality, Production, Tool Room, Purchase, and Sales/Customer teams for successful product development.
- Prepare and review BOM, process specifications, technical documents, trial reports, and development records.
- Plan and conduct laboratory, moulding, extrusion, mixing, and production trials as applicable to the product.
- Analyze trial results and identify opportunities for improvement in compound formulation, process parameters, dimensional accuracy, and product performance.
- Conduct root-cause analysis for development and trial failures using tools such as 5 Why, Fishbone, DOE, and other problem-solving techniques.
- Support development of prototypes, samples, and pre-production batches within agreed timelines.
- Validate products through appropriate physical, chemical, mechanical, aging, and application-specific testing.
- Ensure products comply with applicable customer specifications, ASTM/ISO/DIN or other relevant standards.
- Work on cost reduction,



material optimization, alternate raw-material development, and process improvement.
- Support successful transfer of new products from development to regular production with defined process controls.
- Interact with customers during technical discussions, sample submissions, development reviews, and technical issue resolution, where required.
- Monitor development projects against quality, cost, delivery, and performance targets.
- Maintain proper documentation of development history, trials, test results, changes, and lessons learned.
- Support PPAP/APQP, FMEA, Control Plan, MSA, capability studies, and other customer-specific requirements, where applicable.
- Identify opportunities for product innovation and improvement in existing products.

Required Technical Skills
- Strong knowledge of rubber compounding and processing.
- Valuable understanding of rubber raw materials such as NR, SBR, BR, EPDM, NBR, CR, silicone, FKM, etc., depending on product/application.
- Knowledge of mixing, calendaring, extrusion, compression/injection/transfer moulding, curing/vulcanization, and related processes.
- Understanding of rubber testing and characterization, including hardness, tensile, elongation, tear, compression set, abrasion, aging, rheology/MDR, specific gravity, etc.
- Ability to interpret engineering drawings, product specifications, material specifications, and test standards.
- Experience in troubleshooting development and production-related technical issues.




- Knowledge of APQP, PPAP, FMEA, 8D, CAPA, SPC, and root-cause analysis is desirable.
- Good analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Working knowledge of MS Excel, PowerPoint, and technical documentation.

Education
- B.E./B.Tech in Rubber Technology, Polymer Technology, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent.
- M.E./M.Tech in Rubber/Polymer Technology will be an added advantage.

Preferred Industry Experience Experience in development of rubber products such as:
- Automotive rubber components
- Seals, gaskets, O-rings
- Hoses and profiles
- Rubber moulded components
- Anti-vibration products
- Industrial rubber products
- Rubber-to-metal bonded components

Key Competencies
- Product development and commercialization
- Customer focus and technical communication
- Rubber compound development
- Project and timeline management
- Problem solving and analytical thinking
- Cross-functional coordination
- Cost-conscious approach
- Quality and process orientation
- Innovation and continuous improvement

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- On-time completion of NPD projects
- First-time-right development and trial success
- Customer sample approval rate
- Development-to-production conversion
- Product quality and performance
- Development cost and material cost optimization
- Reduction in development/trial rejections
- Successful resolution of technical issues
- Cost-saving and process-improvement contributions

Ideal Candidate Profile A technically strong rubber professional with 5–8 years of hands-on experience in product development, capable of independently managing development projects, solving rubber compound/process problems, coordinating cross-functional teams, and taking products from customer requirement to commercial production.

📌 New Product Development Engineer (India)
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