Engineering & Productization Manager - Fabrication & Manufacturing

Job Summary

The Engineering & Productization Manager is responsible for converting market demand and project opportunities into standardized, repeatable, and commercially viable fabricated and manufactured solutions that advance Loenbro's transformation from project-specific fabrication toward a scalable manufacturing platform.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President of Manufacturing, this role leads the technical development and productization of fully integrated modular solutions for Loenbro's targeted end markets. The Manager will establish strategic working relationships with engineering and packaging firms, developers, owners, general contractors, EPCs, OEMs, technology providers, and internal Loenbro operating groups to identify recurring needs, shape basis-of-design requirements, and create solutions optimized for off-site manufacturing and field installation.

The position will be the technical integrator for Loenbro's hub-and-spoke manufacturing model, with repeatable products and modules engineered for final assembly, integration, testing, and shipment through designated manufacturing hubs, while components and subassemblies are allocated to spoke facilities wherever capability, capacity, quality, logistics, and economics support the work. The successful candidate will combine engineering leadership, design management, product-development discipline, manufacturing knowledge, commercial judgment, and strong external relationship skills - moving concepts through design, validation, pilot production, standard release, configuration control, and continuous improvement.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Productization Strategy & Portfolio Development

• Develop and execute an engineering and productization roadmap aligned with Loenbro's Fabrication & Manufacturing strategic plan, growth priorities, available capabilities, and targeted end markets.
• Identify recurring customer needs, project scopes, assemblies, and system configurations suitable for standardization, modularization, cataloging, and repeatable production.
• Prioritize product-development investments using market demand, strategic customer pull, addressable volume, margin, capacity utilization, technical feasibility, capital needs, and speed to market.
• Maintain a stage-gate portfolio from opportunity and concept through business case, engineering, prototype, validation, commercialization, standard release, and lifecycle management.

Strategic Partnerships & Early Market Engagement

• Develop strategic relationships with engineering and packaging firms, developers, owners, hyperscalers, general contractors, EPCs, OEMs, technology providers, and other partners capable of accelerating standardized modular solutions.
• Lead technical engagement in design-assist, early contractor involvement, basis-of-design development, constructability workshops, and product-definition sessions.
• Establish clear partnership models addressing responsibilities, intellectual property, design ownership, licensing, exclusivity, confidentiality, engineering liability, and continuous improvement.
• Represent Loenbro's technical and productization capabilities in customer presentations, industry forums, conferences, and strategic partner meetings, translating partner and customer insight into actionable product requirements.

Integrated Modular Solution Development

• Lead development of fully integrated modular systems combining mechanical, piping, structural, electrical, controls, equipment, insulation, testing, and other disciplines as applicable.
• Create repeatable solutions including electrical prefabrication assemblies, electrical and mechanical skids, cooling and liquid-cooling assemblies, modular piping systems, pipe racks, utility modules, power packages, and process modules.
• Define module boundaries, battery limits, interfaces, connection strategies, transportation envelopes, lifting concepts, installation sequencing, commissioning approach, and turnover requirements.
• Coordinate multidisciplinary design reviews and resolve interface risks before release to procurement and manufacturing, ensuring solutions address total installed cost and lifecycle value.

Hub-and-Spoke Manufacturing Integration

• Develop engineering and work-allocation strategies that enable final integration and testing at designated hubs while distributing components and subassemblies to capable spoke facilities.
• Partner with Operations and project leadership to map facility capabilities, capacity, labor, equipment, certifications, geography, logistics, and cost to product work breakdown structures.
• Design products with clear manufacturing breakdown structures, standardized interfaces, controlled tolerances, kitting requirements, quality hold points, and assembly instructions that support multi-facility execution.
• Recommend make/buy and hub/spoke allocation decisions and develop repeatable handoff, packaging, shipping, and traceability requirements for work moving between facilities.

Engineering Management & Design Governance

• Plan, lead, and coordinate internal and external engineering resources, including discipline engineers, designers, BIM/VDC personnel, consultants, and specialty partners.
• Establish design criteria, engineering execution plans, deliverable registers, schedules, budgets, reviews, approval workflows, and responsibility matrices.
• Ensure designs comply with applicable codes, standards, contractual requirements, professional-practice obligations, customer specifications, and Loenbro quality systems.
• Manage outsourced engineering performance, scope, schedule, cost, and quality, and ensure appropriate professional review, stamping, and jurisdictional compliance through qualified engineering entities.

Design for Manufacturing & Assembly

• Embed Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) principles in products to simplify fabrication, reduce part count and labor, improve repeatability, enable automation, and minimize field work.
• Standardize materials, components, connections, joint configurations, dimensional schemes, equipment selections, controls interfaces, and fabrication processes where beneficial.
• Partner with the Welding & Process Improvement Manager, Quality, Supply Chain, shop leadership, and craft subject-matter experts to ensure designs match production capabilities and improvement roadmaps.
• Facilitate design-to-cost, value-engineering, constructability, and production-readiness reviews before design release, using production and field feedback to continually improve standard designs.

Prototype, Validation & Production Readiness

• Plan and lead prototypes, mockups, pilot builds, first-article production, factory acceptance testing, and product validation activities.
• Define measurable acceptance criteria for performance, quality, safety, manufacturability, cost, cycle time, installation, commissioning, and repeatability.
• Document lessons learned, resolve design and process issues, and complete formal production-readiness reviews before scalable release.
• Establish controlled work instructions, inspection and test plans, tooling requirements, training materials, and quality records with Operations and Quality, confirming that capacity, supply chain, and skills support forecast demand.

Configuration, Intellectual Property & Lifecycle Management

• Establish product data management, document control, naming, revision, release, configuration, and change-control standards for repeatable products.
• Maintain approved product baselines, option matrices, bills of material, design libraries, standard details, calculations, models, and manufacturing documentation.
• Prevent uncontrolled project customization and ensure deviations are technically reviewed, commercially understood, approved, and captured for future learning.
• Work with Legal and leadership to identify, protect, license, and appropriately use Loenbro and partner intellectual property, and manage product obsolescence, supplier changes, and end-of-life decisions.

Commercialization & Cross-Functional Execution

• Partner with Business Development to connect customer demand to the product roadmap and support technical selling, strategic pursuits, and account development.
• Partner with Estimating, Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations to develop target costs, standard labor assumptions, pricing inputs, capital requirements, production capacity, and business cases.
• Coordinate transition of awarded products and projects to the Manager of Projects and manufacturing operations with complete engineering, procurement, quality, schedule, and risk information.
• Monitor actual cost, labor, schedule, quality, and commercial performance against the product business case, and support portfolio decisions regarding investment, scale-up, redesign, or retirement.

Target End-Market Development

• Develop solutions supporting mission critical/data centers, power generation and behind-the-meter power, semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, water/wastewater, mining and metals, pharmaceutical/life sciences, food and beverage, energy, and other complex industrial markets.
• Maintain awareness of customer capital programs, technology roadmaps, engineering standards, procurement strategies, code developments, and competitive solutions within targeted markets.
• Identify transferable platforms and common design elements that allow Loenbro to leverage engineering investment across customers, geographies, and adjacent markets.
• Recommend strategic capability, certification, technology, talent, equipment, and partnership investments needed to serve priority markets.

Leadership, Systems & Continuous Improvement

• Lead, coach, and develop assigned engineers, designers, product-development personnel, and matrixed technical teams.
• Establish standard engineering and product-development processes, templates, design reviews, metrics, decision rights, and governance across the manufacturing network.
• Build a culture of technical rigor, curiosity, customer focus, commercial awareness, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Capture and share lessons learned across facilities, projects, products, and partners, and support annual strategic planning, capital planning, and resource forecasting as requested.

Key Performance Indicators

• Revenue, backlog, and gross margin generated from repeatable or productized solutions.
• Number and value of strategic engineering, packaging, OEM, developer, owner, and GC partnerships activated.
• Product concepts advanced through defined stage gates to commercial release.
• Engineering schedule and budget performance; prototype, first-article, validation, and production-readiness success.
• Reduction in engineering hours and design cycle time through reuse, and percentage of common parts, standard configurations, and controlled interfaces.
• Labor-hour, cycle-time, quality, safety, and total-installed-cost improvement versus traditional execution.
• Hub and spoke utilization attributable to standardized product work, and forecastable multi-facility production volume and shop loading.
• Design change, rework, nonconformance, and field-fit performance; time from qualified opportunity to production-ready release.
• Customer adoption, repeat orders, partner satisfaction, and integrity of configuration control and product documentation.

Key Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in engineering management, product development, modularization, fabrication, manufacturing, EPC, industrial construction, systems integration, or a related environment.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary engineered products, skids, modules, packaged systems, or repeatable fabricated assemblies from concept through production and field deployment.
• Strong working knowledge of engineering deliverables, BIM/VDC, procurement, fabrication, manufacturing, quality, testing, logistics, installation, commissioning, and project execution.
• Demonstrated knowledge of DfMA, constructability, modularization, standardization, configuration management, and design change control.
• Experience managing external engineering firms, consultants, OEMs, packaging partners, or other technical partners.
• Ability to evaluate technical feasibility, customer value, manufacturing readiness, risk, cost, schedule, capacity, and return on investment.
• Ability to interpret contracts, scopes, drawings, models, calculations, specifications, codes, bills of material, and technical submittals.
• Strong commercial judgment and ability to collaborate with Business Development, Estimating, Finance, Legal, Supply Chain, Projects, and Operations.
• Strong leadership, facilitation, negotiation, presentation, written communication, and executive stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly to customer, partner, project, supplier, and Loenbro manufacturing locations.
• Professional Engineer licensure, or ability to work effectively within a delegated professional-design structure, preferred.
• Advanced degree in engineering, engineering management, manufacturing, or business preferred.
• Experience with integrated mechanical/electrical modules, data