Process Technician in Rittman, Ohio at J&O Plastics Inc.

J &O Plastics, a leading manufacturer of quality custom injection molding is a dynamic growing manufacturing company committed to operational excellence.

With a strong focus on innovation, efficiency, and quality products, Our team shows up every day to serve our customers and vendors with focus, ingenuity, and a commitment to quality. Each and every one of our employees is an integral part of our operations, and part of what makes J&O Plastics leaders in precision injection molding. We strive to create an inclusive environment that celebrates our different lived experiences, with the hope of fostering a community atmosphere.

We are seeking a highly capable Lead Injection Molding Process Technician to support and lead injection molding production on the assigned shift. This role is responsible for maintaining stable, repeatable molding processes while also providing technical oversight, direction, and support to other process technicians.

Process Technician is accountable for the quality, performance, process stability, and production output of the entire shift’s molding operation. This includes active production troubleshooting, technician guidance, process discipline, machine performance, quality support, escalation of major issues, and ensuring that currently running jobs remain controlled and productive.

Process Monitoring and Production Support

· Monitor active injection molding processes to ensure machines are running within approved and documented process parameters.

· Maintain production output while protecting part quality, process repeatability, and customer requirements.

· Identify process drift, abnormal machine behavior, excessive scrap, downtime patterns, and quality instability.

· Make controlled process adjustments when needed to correct production or quality issues.

· Ensure process changes are made with discipline, documented properly, and communicated to the correct personnel.

· Communicate process concerns clearly to both the people who need to act on them immediately and the leaders who need visibility to recurring or higher-risk issues.

· Support startups, restarts, changeovers, and continuation of existing production jobs.

· Verify that cycle times, pressures, temperatures, cooling times, recovery, cushion, shot size, and other key process settings remain consistent with established standards.

· Drive corrective action for common molding issues such as flash, short shots, burns, splay, sinks, voids, warpage, dimensional variation, sticking parts, and color variation.

· Ensure that production is not allowed to continue in an uncontrolled or questionable process condition.

· Work closely with Quality, Production, and Shift Supervision to ensure molded parts meet customer and internal requirements.

· Support first-piece approvals, in-process inspections, quality alerts, containment actions, and production release activities.

· Respond quickly to quality concerns and help determine whether issues are process-related, material-related, tooling-related, machine-related, automation-related, or handling-related.

· Communicate quality concerns downstream so operators and technicians understand what to watch for, and upstream so supervisors, quality, engineering, and leadership understand risk, impact, and needed support.

· Help lead troubleshooting for recurring quality issues across the shift.

· Ensure technicians and operators understand quality risks and current defect concerns.

· Help protect customers by ensuring suspect product is contained, escalated, and addressed properly.

· Support root cause analysis and corrective action activities for scrap, rejects, customer complaints, or internal quality failures.

· Maintain consistent part appearance, function, dimensional performance, and production repeatability throughout the shift.

Troubleshooting and Technical Problem Solving

· Lead troubleshooting efforts for injection molding defects and production interruptions.

· Troubleshoot common and advanced molding issues.

· Determine whether issues are likely caused by machine settings, mold condition, material condition, drying, cooling, auxiliary equipment, automation, part handling, or operator technique.

· Coordinate with maintenance, tooling, automation, material handling, and quality teams when issues require cross-functional support.

· Ensure problems are not repeatedly patched without addressing the underlying cause.

· Escalate chronic or high-risk issues with clear information, not vague descriptions.

· Share troubleshooting lessons learned with other technicians so the team improves together.

· Remain committed to continuous learning and improving technical knowledge, rather than relying only on past experience.

Machine, Mold, and Auxiliary Equipment Support

· Support injection molding machines during production, including clamp, injection, recovery, cooling, ejection, mold protection, and machine safety functions.

· Verify proper operation of dryers, loaders, grinders, temperature controllers, water lines, chillers, robots, conveyors, end-of-arm tooling, and other auxiliary equipment.

· Ensure process technicians are checking and responding to auxiliary equipment issues that affect production or part quality.

· Confirm proper material feed, colorant usage, drying conditions, regrind usage, and material handling practices.

· Support mold changes, machine startups, restarts, and production changeovers as needed.

· Identify equipment, mold, or auxiliary problems that should be escalated to maintenance, tooling, or engineering.

· Communicate equipment-related risks and issues upstream to the teams responsible for repair, prevention, or longer-term improvement, while communicating immediate direction downstream to the shift team.

· Help maintain clean, organized, and production-ready work areas around presses and auxiliary equipment.

Shift Performance and Production Accountability

· Maintain awareness of shift production goals, machine status, downtime, scrap, labor utilization, and quality performance.

· Help drive the shift toward meeting production expectations without sacrificing quality or safety.

· Identify underperforming jobs and take action to improve output, stability, or escalation.

· Monitor high-risk jobs, repeat offenders, quality-sensitive parts, and machines with known issues.

· Help ensure that production associates and technicians understand priorities for the shift.

· Support production leadership by providing accurate technical input on machine availability, job status, risks, constraints, and support needs.

· Communicate shift priorities downstream in a way that is clear, practical, and actionable.

· Assist with reducing downtime, scrap, rejects, rework, process variation, and avoidable interruptions.

Documentation and Communication

· Ensure process changes, machine conditions, downtime causes, scrap issues, corrective actions, and escalation items are documented accurately.

· Review or support technician documentation for completeness and accuracy.

· Provide strong shift-to-shift communication on current production issues, quality risks, machine concerns, mold status, unresolved technical problems, and follow-up needs.

· Communicate effectively both upstream and downstream so that information does not get trapped at one level of the organization.

· Use company systems, production boards, logs, manufacturing execution systems, or maintenance systems as required.

· Communicate clearly with operators, supervisors, quality technicians, material handlers, maintenance technicians, tooling, automation, engineering, and other process technicians.

· Provide leadership with clear, fact-based updates on major production or process issues.

· Ensure technicians and operators receive clear direction when production priorities, quality risks, or process conditions change.

Safety and Workplace Standards

· Follow and enforce all safety procedures, lockout/tagout requirements, machine guarding rules, and personal protective equipment requirements.

· Set the standard for safe work practices around injection molding machines, molds, robots, conveyors, heaters, electrical panels, hydraulic systems, pneumatic systems, and moving equipment.

· Report and escalate unsafe conditions, equipment concerns, leaks, guarding issues, or abnormal machine behavior.

· Communicate safety concerns immediately to affected personnel and to leadership when additional action is required.

· Ensure process technicians do not bypass safety procedures or take unsafe shortcuts.

· Support a clean, organized, professional, and disciplined production environment.

· Follow company policies, work instructions, standard operating procedures, and escalation rules.

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Required Qualifications

· Strong hands-on experience as an injection molding process technician or similar plastics manufacturing technical role.

· Proven ability to troubleshoot injection molding processes and molded part defects.

· Ability to provide technical direction, coaching, mentoring, and support to other technicians.

· Solid understanding of injection molding process fundamentals, machine operation, molds, materials, auxiliary equipment, and part quality.

· Ability to make disciplined process adjustments while maintaining process control.

· Ability to recognize process drift, production instability, equipment concerns, and quality risk.

· Strong communication skills with operators, technicians, supervisors, maintenance, tooling, quality, and engineering.

· Ability to communicate issues both upstream to leadership and support teams, and downstream to technicians, operators, and shift personnel.

· Ability to prioritize multiple production issues across several machines.

· Ability to work independently and make sound technical decisions under pressure.

· Strong documentation habits and willingness to follow established procedures.

· Commitment to safety, quality, production discipline, team accountability, and continuous learning.

· Basic computer or manufacturing system skills.

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Preferred Qualifications

· 8+ years of injection molding process technician experience

· Experience supporting, coaching, training, or mentoring other technicians in a production environment.

· Experience with electric, hydraulic, or hybrid injection molding machines.

· Experience with robotic part removal, end-of-arm tooling, conveyors, dryers, loaders, grinders, chillers, water systems, and temperature control units.

· Experience processing common thermoplastics such as polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polystyrene (PS), nylon (PA), polycarbonate (PC), or similar materials.

· Familiarity with scientific molding principles, process windows, decoupled molding, or disciplined process control.

· Experience supporting mold changes, startups, restarts, troubleshooting, process validation, and production improvement.

· Experience using manufacturing execution systems, production reporting systems, maintenance systems, or quality systems.

· Experience participating in root cause analysis, corrective actions, scrap reduction, downtime reduction, or continuous improvement projects.

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Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

The successful candidate should be able to:

· Lead the technical condition of a molding shift, not just respond to individual issues.

· Understand the relationship between process settings, machine behavior, material condition, mold performance, and part quality.

· Troubleshoot logically and teach others how to troubleshoot logically.

· Recognize when a process is drifting, unstable, or being adjusted outside acceptable limits.

· Balance production output with quality, safety, and process discipline.

· Coach technicians while still remaining hands-on and floor-focused.

· Communicate clearly across shifts, across departments, upstream to leadership, and downstream to technicians and operators.

· Prioritize issues based on customer risk, safety risk, downtime, scrap, and production impact.

· Maintain urgency without creating chaos or encouraging shortcuts.

· Hold a high standard for documentation, housekeeping, safety, and production readiness.

· Escalate problems early with facts, data, and recommended next steps.

· Maintain a continuous-learning mindset and help build that mindset in others.

· Teach, coach, and mentor technicians in a way that improves team capability over time.

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Physical Requirements

· Ability to stand and walk for extended periods in a manufacturing environment.

· Ability to lift, push, pull, or move materials and equipment as required by the role.

· Ability to work around injection molding machines, molds, robots, conveyors, and auxiliary equipment.

· Ability to bend, reach, climb, and perform hands-on troubleshooting as needed.

· Ability to work in a production environment with heat, noise, moving equipment, and standard manufacturing conditions.

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Work Environment

This is a hands on position that works primarily on the production floor in an injection molding manufacturing environment. The role requires frequent interaction with production associates, process technicians, quality personnel, maintenance, tooling, automation, material handling, and shift leadership. The role also requires consistent communication in both directions: upward to leadership and support departments, and downward to technicians, operators, and production associates who need clear direction and feedback.