Career Area:Manufacturing
Job Description:Job Summary:As a Manufacturing Engineer with a strong process engineering focus, you play a key role in designing, improving, and supporting manufacturing processes that drive safety, quality, cost, and efficiency across the production floor.
This is a 3rd shift role, providing a great opportunity to support operations in a hands-on environment during critical production hours.
You work closely with cross-functional teams to develop and optimize processes, introduce new tooling and equipment, support engineering changes, and solve complex manufacturing challenges.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys hands-on process improvement, root cause problem solving, and working directly with operations to build safe, capable, and efficient manufacturing systems. You are part of a collaborative team that values continuous improvement, innovation, and delivering high-quality products every day.
What You Will Do:- Design, develop, and continuously improve manufacturing processes to support safety, quality, cost, and production goals.
- Serve as a process engineering expert for molding operations, identifying opportunities to improve process capability, efficiency, and reliability.
- Lead process risk identification and mitigation activities, including Safety FMEAs and Process FMEAs, and drive corrective actions for safety incidents, near misses, and quality defects.
- Support new product introductions, engineering changes, and process updates by developing and implementing new processes, tooling, and equipment.
- Provide day-to-day engineering support to manufacturing operations, including troubleshooting process issues and driving root cause analysis and corrective actions.
- Reduce manufacturing costs and improve throughput through data-driven process optimization and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Operations, Quality, Design Engineering, and Supply Chain to ensure manufacturable designs and robust processes.
- Develop and maintain process documentation, standard work, and engineering specifications to ensure compliance with safety, quality, and environmental standards.
- Support equipment planning, installation, validation, and ongoing maintenance to ensure processes remain capable and efficient.
- Promote a culture of continuous improvement, defect prevention, and safe work practices across the manufacturing floor.
Education requirement:Bachelor's degree in Engineering or demonstrate equivalent knowledge through professional expertise.
What skills you will have:Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Demonstrates strong decision-making and critical thinking skills by thoughtfully evaluating prior decisions to extract insights and continuously improve future outcomes. Guides others in analyzing relevant data and evaluating multiple alternatives to reach well-informed conclusions. Actively challenges assumptions and conventional thinking, ensuring decisions are grounded in objective analysis rather than habit or bias.
Manufacturing Processes: Leverages extensive
industry experience and
external benchmarks to advise others on improving
manufacturing methodologies and overall
process effectiveness. Provides clear
instruction on critical tasks, key
process considerations, and end-to-end
manufacturing workflows. Identifies, tailors, and optimizes
process-specific methodologies while evaluating the
benefits, limitations, and applicability of alternative
processes and technologies.
Lean Manufacturing: Ensures
communication channels effectively inform all
impacted employees and functional areas of relevant standards and updates.
Collaborates cross-functionally to establish, align, and document
shared standards that promote consistency across the organization. Actively contributes to defining
organizational principles,
standards, and
governance frameworks that support
operational excellence and
compliance.
Engineering - MFG: Oversees
issue identification and resolution, providing timely
feedback to downstream customers and stakeholders. Applies
established manufacturing procedures to address
non-standard or complex problems and consistently utilize
structured problem-solving methodologies to deliver
effective and sustainable solutions.
Additional Information: This
position is a 3rd shift role and requires the candidate to work
onsite five days a week at the Mapleton, IL office.
Domestic relocation assistance is NOT available for this position.
Visa sponsorship is NOT available with this position.
This position will require 10% travel.
Summary Pay Range:$89,210.00 - $133,810.00
Compensation and benefits offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, job level, market location, job-related knowledge, skills, individual performance and experience. Please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Caterpillar.
Benefits:Subject to plan eligibility, terms, and guidelines. This is a summary list of benefits.
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits*
- Paid time off plan (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.)*
- 401(k) savings plans*
- Health Savings Account (HSA)*
- Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)*
- Health Lifestyle Programs*
- Employee Assistance Program*
- Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts*
- Career Development*
- Incentive bonus*
- Disability benefits
- Life Insurance
- Parental leave
- Adoption benefits
- Tuition Reimbursement
* These benefits also apply to part-time employees
This position requires working onsite five days a week.
Posting Dates:June 5, 2026 - June 16, 2026
Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a drug screen.
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