Metallurgist at Channellock, Inc. – Meadville, Pennsylvania

Responsible for ensuring the integrity and performance of metal materials through established metallurgical practices. This role develops, implements, and maintains metallurgical procedures and standards necessary to support and ensure high-quality manufacturing outcomes and regulatory compliance.

Essential Functions:

• Conduct metallurgical sampling and analysis of incoming steel shipments to verify microstructure cleanliness and conformance to specified mechanical properties.
• Sample and test products subjected to internal manufacturing and heat- treating operations for structure and analysis: Forging, Heat Treating, and Machining.
• Develop, establish, and maintain heat-treating procedures across all product lines.
• Execute failure analyses on field returns and evaluate competitors’ products for benchmarking.
• Monitor heat-treating operations and related procedures to ensure consistent product integrity and adherence to metallurgical standards.
• Drive metallurgical-related continuous improvement initiatives focused on yield, throughput, and waste reduction and identify opportunities to optimize heat-treat cycles, reduce distortion, improve hardness consistency, or eliminate scrap.
• Support Quality Assurance initiatives by contributing metallurgical expertise to root cause analysis and the development of preventive and corrective actions across manufacturing processes
• Maintain current certifications for hazardous material requirements associated with consumer products produced by Channellock such as Prop65, REACH and RoHS.
• Evaluate products performance through metallurgical and functional analysis, including: Functional Specification, Strength, Wear, Structure, Competitors’ products, and Failure Analysis from field returns
• Advise and provide metallurgical guidance to New Product Development and Process Improvement committees, including recommendations regarding design criteria, material selection, and heat-treating requirements. Lead or contribute to structured root-cause analyses for material or heat-treat-related defects.
• Conduct competitive product evaluations to benchmark metallurgical characteristics and performance.
• Identify and assess emerging technologies or metallurgical processes that may enhance product quality, manufacturing efficiency, or throughput.
• Compile and interpret metallurgical test data; prepare technical reports summarizing findings, trends, and recommendations.
• Maintain accurate records of testing, sampling, and analysis to support traceability and quality audits.
• Maintain ISO documentation as it pertains to heat treating and material testing and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) for metallurgical testing equipment.
• Represent Channellock’s interests through committee and membership in such groups as ASME, HTI, MTI.

• Metallurgical Degree and minimum 5 years’ experience with ferrous metals.
• Laser Heat Treating experience with minimum 2 years’ experience.
• Assist in the specification, purchase and installation of various types of Heat Treating and metal processing equipment.
• Familiarity with metallurgical analysis tools such as optical microscopy, hardness testing, SEM, or spectroscopy.
• Knowledge of ISO quality systems and regulatory standards including Prop 65, REACH, and RoHS.
• Ability to interpret engineering drawings, material specifications, and heat-treating standards.
• Ability to work with all levels of management in resolving production problems.