Validation Engineer

Follett Products, LLC

Easton, PA

Estimated pay: Est. $29–$38/hr (market estimate, not employer-stated)

Shift: Full time

Description:

Since 1948, Follett Products, LLC, has led the industry in designing and manufacturing high-quality, innovative ice storage bins, ice storage and transport systems, ice machines, ice and water dispensers, ice and beverage dispensers, and medical-grade refrigerators and freezers for the food service and healthcare industries.

Follett currently has an opportunity for a **Validation Engineer** to join our team!

Follett’s robust benefits package includes medical, dental, and vision insurance; paid time off; paid holidays; retirement plan with company match, bonus opportunity, and much more.

The Validation Engineer establishes and sustains technical standards for defining products and verifying that product designs and manufacturing processes meet these requirements. This is a senior individual contributor role that leads through technical authority, methodology ownership, and coaching rather than through direct supervision.

The position works cross-functionally, partnering with the Product Design, Industrial Engineering, and Technical Service teams to define methods for establishing product requirements, developing and qualifying test methods, and validating manufacturing equipment and processes. This role also involves warranty data analysis, using the results to improve product requirements planning and test methods.

**Essential Functions:**

**Requirements Definition & Design Verification**

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• Develop methods to establish clear, comprehensive, and measurable product requirements.
• Define and maintain the Design Verification Plan & Report (DVP&R) standard to document traceability of requirements to evidence.
• Champion, partner, and collaborate with Product Design and Industrial engineers in authoring program-level DVP&Rs. Review and approve plans for high-risk programs.
• Proactively define verification and validation exit criteria for product development stage gates.

**Test Method Development & Qualification**

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• Develop and maintain a test method library containing cross-functional contributions.
• Develop new test methods where no qualified method exists. Consider instrumentation strategy, fixture requirements, environmental chamber profiles, data acquisition approach, and measurement uncertainty.
• Partner with the Product Design team, which manages laboratory and environmental chamber facilities, to schedule and prioritize validation activity.

**Process & Equipment Validation**

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• Define standards for installation, operational, and performance qualification (IQ/OQ/PQ) of manufacturing equipment and processes.
• Provide protocols, templates, and technical review for validation activities executed by Industrial Engineering. Establish criteria and triggers for requalification following process, tooling, supplier, or location changes.
• Establish and govern the measurement systems analysis (MSA) standard including gage repeatability and reproducibility, bias, and linearity. Place particular emphasis on leak test and functional test systems where the measurement system constitutes the acceptance decision.
• Set the statistical standard for process capability studies and sampling plans. Ensure validation results are reflected in control plans owned by Industrial Engineering.
• Apply design of experiments (DOE) to optimize product and process performance.

**Reliability & Warranty Analysis Support**

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• Support the cross-functional warranty team with reliability analysis of field data. Use tools such as Weibull analysis to evaluate product lifespans, predict equipment failures, and optimize maintenance schedules.
• Develop test plans that reproduce field failure modes in a laboratory environment and establish correlation between accelerated laboratory testing and observed field life.
• Design accelerated life tests appropriate to refrigeration systems product portfolios, including compressor and control cycling, door and hardware cycle life, joint thermal fatigue, corrosion and condensation exposure, and cleaning chemical compatibility.
• Contribute technical analysis and experimental design to structured problem-solving efforts such as CAPA and 8D investigations, which are facilitated by the Quality function.
• Ensure that recurring and high-cost field failure modes result in a documented change to the product requirements, the test method library, or the process validation standard.

**Capability Building**

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• Train and mentor engineers across Product Design, Industrial Engineering, and Quality in requirements definition, validation planning, applied statistics, and reliability methods.
• Develop and maintain templates, work instructions, and the validation and verification elements of the Quality Management System.

Requirements:

**Education & Experience**

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• Bachel