Senior Manufacturing & Production Quality Lead – LifeBand

Location: India – predominantly on-site in Chennai

Engagement: Contract, Full Time

Reporting to: Equivital UK Product & Operations Leadership

Product: Equivital LifeBand – first high-volume production run of 2,000 units

Role purpose

Equivital is seeking experienced electronics manufacturing skilled to provide hands-on leadership and oversight of the first high-volume production run of approximately 2,000 LifeBand devices at our manufacturing partner in India.

This is a critical production-launch role. The successful candidate will act as Equivital's senior on-site manufacturing representative and will be responsible for ensuring that the production process is properly controlled, technically robust and capable of delivering a consistently high-quality product at the required yield.

The individual will work closely with the manufacturing company in Chennai and quality teams, Equivital's UK engineering and product teams, and other technical stakeholders.

The role requires someone who is comfortable working directly on the factory floor, identifying problems, challenging poor processes, implementing corrective actions and communicating clearly with both factory personnel and senior technical teams in the UK.

Key objectives The successful candidate will be accountable for:

- Excellent build quality across the 2,000-unit production run.
- High first-pass yield and minimal rework/scrap.
- Successful integration of the new ATE into the production process.
- Implementation and control of the current final DFT testing process.
- Robust control and verification of the LifeBand welding process.
- Ensuring welded assemblies meet the required mechanical and electrical specifications, particularly those affecting pogo-pin performance.
- Accurate material, component and finished-goods traceability.
- Improved stock control and production material management at Manufacturing plant.
- Rapid identification, containment and resolution of production issues.
- Accurate production reporting to the UK team.
- Establishment of a repeatable production process that Manufacturing company can continue to operate after the launch phase.

Key responsibilities 1. Production launch and daily manufacturing oversight

- Be Equivital's principal technical and operational representative on-site during the production run.
- Work closely with Manufacturing company production, engineering and quality personnel.
- Review and approve production readiness before volume manufacturing begins.
- Establish clear daily production targets and monitor actual performance.
- Monitor production flow from incoming components through assembly, welding, programming, testing, final inspection and packing.
- Identify bottlenecks, recurring defects and process weaknesses.
- Challenge processes that are not producing the required quality or yield.
- Have authority to recommend or initiate a production stop where there is a significant quality or product-risk issue.

2. ATE implementation The successful candidate will:

- Work with Equivital engineering and manufacturing company to embed the ATE into the production process.
- Ensure operators understand the correct test procedure.
- Verify that the ATE is correctly configured and being used consistently.
- Establish appropriate test records and traceability.
- Monitor ATE failure rates and identified abnormal trends.
- Distinguish genuine product failures from test-equipment/operator/process failures.
- Ensure failed units are correctly quarantined and investigated.




- Ensure that production does not bypass required ATE testing.
- Work with engineering to refine the ATE process where necessary.

3. Final DFT implementation Final Design-for-Test / DFT testing is a new element of the LifeBand production process.

The role will be responsible for:

- Implementing the final DFT test process on the production line.
- Ensuring appropriate test fixtures, equipment and procedures are available.
- Training and supervising operators.
- Ensuring 100% of required devices receive the defined final testing.
- Ensuring test results are recorded and traceable to individual units.
- Monitoring DFT failure modes and trends.
- Working with Equivital engineering to investigate recurring failures.
- Preventing units from progressing to final packing without completing the required tests.

4. Welding process control A particularly important responsibility will be oversight of the LifeBand welding process. The successful candidate must have practical experience of manufacturing processes involving small electronic assemblies and understand the failure modes associated with welding/joining processes.

They will

- Establish and document the required welding process parameters.
- Verify that the welding equipment is correctly set up and maintained.
- Ensure operators are trained and following the approved process.
- Establish appropriate first-off and periodic inspection requirements.
- Monitor weld quality throughout production.
- Identify potential weld defects before they become downstream failures.
- Ensure appropriate mechanical/electrical verification of the weld.
- Investigate weld-related failures and implement corrective actions.
- Pay particular attention to the impact of the welding process on the alignment, positioning and reliability of the LifeBand pogo-pin interface.
- Ensure the finished assembly meets the required mechanical tolerances and electrical performance requirements.

Experience with welding or joining of small electronic assemblies, plastics, metals, flexes, contacts or similar precision components would be highly desirable. 5. Quality and yield management

Establish and maintain a clear production-quality dashboard covering, at minimum:

- First-pass yield (FPY)
- Overall yield
- Scrap
- Rework
- ATE failures
- DFT failures
- Welding defects
- Pogo-pin/contact failures
- Functional test failures
- Component/assembly defects
- Repeat failure modes
- Units quarantined
- Units released
- Production throughput

The successful candidate will identify trends rather than simply report numbers. Where yield deteriorates, they will determine the likely root cause and drive corrective action.

6. Factory process discipline and stock control

Manufacturing company currently requires improved production discipline and material control.

The role will therefore include:

- Verification of component availability before production starts.
- Physical verification of critical stock where required.
- Improving accuracy between recorded and actual stock.
- Ensuring components are correctly identified and traceable.
- Preventing uncontrolled substitution of components.
- Ensuring rejected/failed components are segregated.
- Establishing appropriate quarantine and disposition processes.




- Identifying shortages before they stop production.
- Ensuring finished and semi-finished units can be reconciled against production records.

7. Non-conformance and root-cause analysis The individual will lead or coordinate investigation of manufacturing defects. They should be comfortable using appropriate techniques including:

- CAPA
- Non-Conformance
- Process capability analysis where appropriate

The objective is not simply to repair defective units but to prevent recurrence. 8. Communication with the UK team

Provide a concise daily/weekly production report to Equivital UK covering:

Production

- Units planned, completed, passed, failed, yield, Rework/scrap

Quality

- Top defects, ATE failures, DFT failures, Welding defects, Contact/pogo-pin issues, Open NCRs

Operations

- Stock/component issues
- Production constraints
- Staffing/process issues
- Risks to schedule

Actions

- Corrective actions completed
- Actions in progress
- Decisions required from the UK team

Significant quality issues should be escalated immediately rather than waiting for the weekly report. Authority The individual must have sufficient authority to:

- Stop or pause production where a significant quality issue is identified.
- Quarantine suspect product.
- Require re-testing or additional inspection.
- Challenge production processes that do not meet the agreed specification.
- Escalate unresolved issues directly to Equivital UK leadership.

The role is not intended to be a passive inspection position.

Required experience

Essential

- Significant experience in electronics manufacturing.
- Experience managing or overseeing production of electronic devices/products.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing quality systems.
- Hands-on experience with production testing and test equipment.
- Experience implementing or managing ATE or automated production testing.
- Experience with DFT/functional testing.
- Experience with precision manufacturing processes involving small components.
- Practical experience with welding, joining or equivalent manufacturing processes involving small electronic assemblies.
- Strong understanding of process control, yield and defect analysis.
- Strong communication skills in English.
- Ability to work directly with factory operators, engineers and management.
- Comfortable working on the factory floor rather than purely in an office environment.

Highly desirable

- Experience with wearables, medical devices, IoT devices, consumer electronics, industrial electronics or similar products.
- Experience with high-volume electronics manufacturing.
- Experience with SMT/PCBA and final assembly.
- Experience with pogo pins, spring contacts, connectors or similar electrical interfaces.
- Experience establishing production test fixtures and traceability systems.
- Experience working with international companies or overseas engineering teams within regulated manufacturing environment.
- Experience with ISO 9001, ISO 13485 or similar quality systems.
- Engineering degree in Electronics, Electrical, Mechanical, Manufacturing or a related discipline.

Personal characteristics The successful candidate will be:

- Technically credible.
- Hands-on and practical.
- Highly organised.
- Detail-oriented without losing sight of production objectives.
- Comfortable challenging poor processes.
- Calm under production pressure.
- Commercially aware.
- Strong enough to represent Equivital's interests with the manufacturing partner.
- Excellent at communicating technical issues simply and clearly to UK-based colleagues.

📌 Manufacturing Engineering Manager (Chennai)
🏢 Equivital
📍 Chennai