Job Description
Responsible to: Chief Design and Engineering Officer
Qualifications, skills, and all relevant experience needed for this role can be found in the full description below.
Salary Competitive
About the Company
Brompton wants to create urban freedom for happier lives. By providing the means to commute or explore with a bike that you can take anywhere and store anywhere we can make cities better places to live. Our high-quality products, combined with a global surge in cycling means that we are enjoying strong, sustained growth. If we are to continue to thrive, we need to recruit great people who can contribute to our ambitious aims. We are a truly global company exporting 80% of our production to 45 countries around the world, we will produce 100,000 bikes this year and have bold growth plans for the coming years. We can offer you a job you will not find anywhere else.
The role
Brompton Bicycle has been built on an iconic, proven design that leads its market but has huge potential to develop, both through the application of new technology and also through superb product and industrial design.
Brompton’s design philosophy is to create useful tools that last and improve people’s lives. We obsess over detail and adore inventiveness. With a mission to ‘create urban freedom’ we aim to appeal universally to people that live in cities and design around that user.
Brompton is determined to take a sustainable approach to its business. With so much environmental impact defined at the design stage you will ensure that future Brompton products are a good for the planet as they are for the custome
As Design Director you will be charged with taking the product legacy and moving it on for the next decades. Part of the top tier management group you will collaborate with peers across the business to shape Brompton’s product and design strategy. You will be a driver of design excellence and a mentor for your leadership group and their teams.
With an increased capacity to invest, Brompton is accelerating its product pipeline and get great product to market morequickly. You will organise resource and work with peers and your teams to create fast and effective ‘New Product Introduction machine’.
The role is a new level of seniority necessary in our rapidly scaling company. It will preside over the functions and teams delivering product development, from short term projects to long term strategic direction. The role reports into the Chief Design and Engineering Officer. The Design Director will sit on the ExCo board responsible for delivering company strategy and running the business.
Purpose of the Role:
- Deliver the right products to market at the right time
- Work closely with the engineering teams to take new technology and implement it into products.
- Work with the Engineering Director to make sure Brompton’s technology roadmap and product roadmap align.
- Work with the Product Management team to ensure the product roadmap meets commercial goals and is appropriate for the different global markets we work in.
- Drive an understanding of user need and product opportunities through user centred design techniques.
- Ensure Brompton has an active funnel of ideas, managed with discipline so the right concepts go forward into development
- Make sure the design functions are close to the customer and user insight flows into decisions.
- Prototype actively and test with real users as much as possible.
- Innovate not just in the projects but also in the techniques used to develop them.
- Work with all teams to turn subjective insight and direction into objective engineering and product targets and specifications.
- Work with other departments to embed a requirements management approach into programs.
- Employ a Systems Engineering approach to make sure complex products, particularly electric bicycles are developed in a structured and organised manner.
- Develop the capabilities of a design engineering group to deliver outstanding technical product design and mechanisms that are resilient, functional, and manufacturable.
- Develop the capabilities of an industrial design group such that Brompton’s products are delightful, visually consistent and appealing.
- Embed DFMEA and other techniques at a level that adds real value to the business. Work with program managers to improve and finesse the stage gate management system at Brompton.
- Ensuring the Brompton’s development process is lean and efficient and delivers value for the investment. Drive continuous improvement of the process.
- Ensure development programs are well managed between stage gates in the development phases with progress communicated accurately and clearly to the business.
- Supervise where needed if programs are not on track. Work with Programme Managers and Product Management to respond with resource adjustments or changes in scope or risk.
- Support the operational side of the business with continuous improvement of the current designs. Coach a Continuous Improvement design team to contribute effectively to running change.
- Support purchasing and logistics with appropriate product changes to help them keep the supply chain resilient and competitive.
- Communicate the benefits of new designs excellently within the business to bring colleagues with you and pass seamlessly into marketing communications.
- Introduce new digital tools to reduce time to market and support a right first time release mentality.
- Keep levels of ambition high within the company. Fight for the customer experience and deliver.
Skills and Attributes:
Brompton is a technical product with the user at the centre. The right candidate will combine superb mechanical experience and a track record of delivering technically challenging designs with a passion for user centered design and a curiosity for how things can be done better.
Brompton is a manufacturing business on a path to making high volumes of products with variance between models. As with all ambitious manufacturers we aim to be lean. You will have a thorough understanding of Design for Manufacture and Design for Assembly and will lead your teams to deliver highly manufacturable products. You will apply the principles of Bill of Design to create outstanding levels of customer value and minimise non value add complexity in manufacturing and sourcing.
Brompton is expanding rapidly and running multiple concurrent programs of increasing complexity. As well as being an inspirational Design leader the right candidate will be a first-class administrator capable of developing business processes with colleagues across the Brompton that are effective, lean and allow value to be created efficiently.
- Experience of responsibility in a top-level leadership group. Examples could include at Exco in a medium or large business or as part of a major program in a multinational. Excellent relationship management skills and a record of forming productive relationships with peers.
- Proven top-level leadership and management skills. The ability to coach and guide managers to drive team performance and development. The ability to inspire and motivate.
- Excellent communication, interpersonal and influencing skills. The ability to communicate and sell idea from Board level down to working teams.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- Results orientated with ability to plan and get your teams delivering against project deadlines.
- Commercially and financially astute with experience of managing budgets. An understanding of the financial tools used at a strategic level.
- Resilient, self-motivated and able to work well under pressure
- Proven track record of applying strategic thinking to the product design process.
- Proven track record of delivering outstanding returns through outstanding design.
Qualifications and Experience Levels:
- A minimum of 15 years of relevant industry experience.
- An interest in cycling and a desire to create products that improve people’s lives.
Qualifications and Experience Levels:
- A minimum of 15 years of relevant industry experience.
- An interest in cycling and a desire to create products that improve people’s lives.