Tooling Manager (Mold/Composite/FRP/Manufacturing)

WhiteWater makes products, but we are a service business at our heart, which means we are a people business. In this way, we excel and create value for our clients by listening to their needs, collaborating to develop solutions, problem-solving and attending to the details. Our culture, as you would expect, reflects these traits. We are a diverse group of experts, from creative designers to talented engineers. Whatever expertise we bring from all over the world, we listen and learn from each other because we are aligned with a clearly understood purpose. Together, we create fun for families globally. Interested in starting an exciting career with WhiteWater? Apply today!

Whitewater's Engineering Services department is looking for a candidate to join us in the following role:

Position: Global Mould and Tooling Manager

Shift: Regular Full Time, hours a week

Department: Engineering Services

Location: Richmond, Canada

Reports to: Manager, Engineering Services

Purpose:

The Global Mould and Tooling Manager is fully accountable for the full lifecycle governance of all tooling assets, ensuring they are designed, documented, deployed, maintained, and retired in a controlled, traceable, and cost-effective manner across the global manufacturing network. The role will ensure that tooling assets are fit for purpose, available when needed, and aligned with evolving product and manufacturing requirements. This role owns the operational and capital economics of the global FRP mould portfolio, balancing uptime, quality, and lifecycle cost through disciplined maintenance, refurbishment, and investment planning.

The Global Mould and Tooling Manager partners closely with internal teams in Engineering, Product Development, Quality, and Operations and is accountable for evolving the tooling function into a governed, transparent, and scalable global asset-management capability. The role acts as the primary interface between the company and all mould-holding suppliers and tooling partners, ensuring consistent execution of mould handling, storage, maintenance, and modification standards ensuring that mould availability, readiness, and resilience align with global production schedules, capacity plans, and supply chain strategies.

Key Responsibilities:

Mould Asset Governance, Lifecycle & Data Ownership

• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of all FRP mould assets, including design approval process, capital budgeting authorization, purchasing, commissioning, production use, maintenance, refurbishment, storage, transfer, replication, and decommissioning.
• Enforce global standards for mould construction, documentation, usage limits, maintenance intervals, refurbishment criteria, and retirement decisions.
• Serve as the single point of accountability for all mould assets globally, ensuring clear ownership, status visibility, and lifecycle decision authority.
• Own and govern mould-related manufacturing data and systems, including drawings, bills of material, part masters, configuration data, and revision control across suppliers and regions.
• Ensure mould assets remain fit for their intended process capability, production volumes, and quality requirements throughout their service life.
• Maintain standardized mould status classifications (, active, idle, under repair, obsolete) to support operational and financial decision-making.

Global Mould Inventory, Traceability & Asset Visibility

• Establish and maintain a single, authoritative inventory of all FRP moulds, including unique identification, location, supplier stewardship, condition, revision level, and usage history.
• Implement and govern digital mould tracking and documentation systems (ERP, MES, PLM, or specialized tooling databases) as the system of record.
• Provide real-time visibility into mould availability and condition across all manufacturing partners and regions.
• Define and enforce controlled processes for mould storage, transfer, and audits to prevent loss, duplication, or unmanaged modifications of tooling assets.

Supplier, Partner & Tooling Network Management

• Act as the primary interface between the company and all mould-holding suppliers and tooling partners.
• Ensure suppliers adhere to defined standards for mould handling, storage, maintenance, reporting, and modification.
• Plan and coordinate new tool builds, mould transfers, repairs, and refurbishments in support of production requirements.
• Conduct audits of supplier tooling practices and drive corrective actions where deficiencies or risks are identified.
• Manage an extended global tooling network to ensure consistent execution, accountability, and availability of critical mould assets.

Maintenance, Refurbishment, Cost Control & Capital Planning

• Define and enforce preventive and corrective maintenance standards for FRP moulds based on process requirements, material systems, and expected service life.
• Approve mould refurbishments, surface renewals, structural repairs, rebuilds, or retirements based on wear, quality performance, risk, and future demand.
• Manage internal and external tool shops and repair resources, including supplier-based and third-party capabilities.
• Own mould-related operating and capital budgets, including review, approval, and issuance of purchase orders within approved capital plans.
• Prepare and present annual and multi-year tooling CAPEX roadmaps aligned with product, capacity, and supply chain strategies.
• Evaluate total cost of ownership (TCO), including build cost, maintenance, refurbishment, logistics, storage, downtime, and scrap impacts.

Production Readiness, Risk & Supply Chain Strategy

• Ensure mould availability and readiness align with global production schedules and manufacturing capacity plans.
• Identify critical capacity constraint or single-point-of-failure moulds and implement risk mitigation strategies such as duplication, refurbishment, or relocation.
• Support new product industrialization activities by ensuring mould readiness, validation, and supplier capability prior to production ramp-up.
• Provide tooling inputs into supply and operations, network design, and regional manufacturing strategy discussions.
• Optimize mould placement and duplication strategies to reduce inter-regional freight costs, lead time, and supply risk.
• Support dual-sourcing and resilience initiatives by ensuring tooling does not constrain regional autonomy or continuity of supply.

Engineering, Quality, Continuous Improvement & Capability Evolution

• Partner with Product Development and Engineering internal teams to ensure new and revised mould designs meet approved process, quality, and manufacturability requirements.
• Serve as owner of mould version control, ensuring all revisions are clearly defined, approved, documented, and traceable across duplicate or mirrored tooling.
• Manage mould-related change control through formal ECO/ECN or equivalent processes, including downstream impact assessment.
• Collaborate with Quality on NCRs and investigations to determine tooling-related root causes and ensure corrective and preventive actions are consistently implemented.
• Drive standardization and continuous improvement initiatives to improve mould durability, uptime, surface life, ergonomics, and overall lifecycle performance.
• Lead the evolution of the global tooling function from a reactive, execution-heavy model to a governed, transparent, and scalable asset management capability while maintaining day-to-day delivery performance.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

• –+ years’ experience in FRP / composites manufacturing, tooling, or mould management.
• Technical understanding of FRP mould construction, materials, surface life, and wear mechanisms
• PMP or MBA are highly advantageous.
• Proven experience managing large tooling and/or asset portfolios across multiple suppliers or regions
• Experience with ERP, MES, PLM, or tooling management systems

COMPETENCIES, SKILLS & ABILITIES:

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite with the ability to quickly learn new technology, systems, and tools.
• Strong Project management and problem-solving skills.
• Strong supplier management, cost control, and cross functional leadership skills
• Skilled in applying lean manufacturing and continuous improvement principles to drive operational excellence and consistency across global suppliers.
• Enthusiasm for innovation and process improvement.
• Demonstrate professional behaviour with internal and external stakeholders.
• Build trust and maintain mutual respect, cooperation, and consideration.
• Strong interpersonal, communication and organizational skills required.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, motivate, and develop a diverse team of professionals to achieve high performance and operational excellence.
• Exceptional ability to listen with excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to analyze, streamline, and optimize complex manufacturing workflows to improve productivity, reduce waste, and ensure cost-effectiveness.
• Ability to identify and adopt new FRP technologies and innovations that enhance production efficiency, product quality, and sustainability.
• Willingness to travel internationally as required
• Must be legally eligible to work in Canada.

WhiteWater Competencies:

• Accountability – We do what we say
• Collaboration – We work well together
• Customer Focus – We know and respond to our customers
• Communication – We listen to and understand each other
• Authenticity – We are honest and trust each other
• Resilience – We deal effectively with pressure, are persistent and optimistic
• Flexibility & Adaptability – We are willing and able to respond to changing circumstance

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