Manufacturing Engineer - Assembly

Location: Decatur, IL
Travel: Up to 5%
Relocation Assistance: Available
Visa Sponsorship: Not Available

Job Summary

As a Manufacturing Engineer at Caterpillar’s Decatur, Illinois facility, you will provide hands‑on manufacturing engineering support to improve safety, quality, velocity, and cost across high‑volume, heavy‑equipment manufacturing operations. This role focuses on process ownership, shop‑floor problem solving, and continuous improvement, working closely with operations, quality, supply chain, and other engineering teams. You will translate production requirements into capable manufacturing processes while ensuring compliance with safety and environmental standards. This is an individual contributor role with significant impact on daily production performance and long‑term operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide manufacturing engineering expertise to support safe, high‑quality, and cost‑effective production.

• Design, implement, and improve manufacturing processes, layouts, tooling, and equipment.

• Identify and resolve manufacturing issues using structured problem‑solving methods and data‑driven analysis.

• Support continuous improvement initiatives focused on safety, quality, throughput, ergonomics, and waste reduction.

• Develop and maintain standard work, work instructions, routings, and process documentation.

• Monitor equipment and process capability; recommend improvements to enhance reliability and performance.

• Partner with operations and support teams to implement process changes and corrective actions.

• Support manufacturing readiness for new products, design changes, and capacity increases.

• Participate in capital and expense projects, including justification, implementation, and validation.

• Ensure compliance with safety, quality, and environmental requirements in all manufacturing activities.

Required Skills

• Manufacturing Engineering (Working Knowledge): Ability to apply engineering principles to improve manufacturing processes and production systems.

• Manufacturing Processes: Understanding of assembly processes.

• Lean Manufacturing: Ability to apply lean principles to improve flow, eliminate waste, and improve productivity.

• Problem Solving: Structured approach to identifying root causes and implementing sustainable corrective actions.

• Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Ability to analyze data, assess risk, and make sound engineering decisions.

• Project Management (Working Knowledge): Ability to plan, execute, and track engineering work and improvement activities.

• Communication Skills: Ability to collaborate effectively with operators, leaders, and cross‑functional teams.

Preferred Skills

• Experience in heavy manufacturing, large equipment, or high‑volume industrial environments.

• Exposure to automation, tooling design, or equipment integration.

• Experience developing standard work, control plans, or process documentation.

• Familiarity with continuous improvement tools such as value stream mapping, root cause analysis, and mistake‑proofing.

• Strong data skills using common engineering and productivity tools.