Vacancy title:
RWANDA QUALITY ASSURANCE MANAGER

Jobs at:
EarthEnable Rwanda

Deadline of this Job:
25th June 2018

Duty Station:
Kigali, Rwanda

JOB DETAILS:
JOB DESCRIPTION: RWANDA QUALITY ASSURANCE MANAGER
Company: EarthEnable Rwanda
Reports to: Rwanda Managing Director
Location: Nyamata, Rwanda
Compensation: Competitive and commensurate with experience
Timeframe: 2+ years

Who We Are
At EarthEnable, we believe that our clients deserve our very best, that morning high-fives are the best way to start the day, and that the best ideas could come from any part of the company. We celebrate each other’s wins, learn from our setbacks, and are deeply proud of the impact we make every day. We believe that a clean, dust-free floor means more than living in a healthy home. It means pride and dignity in the place our customers most treasure: their homes. Being a part of our team means more than building floors: it means building an organization and building a better future for rural families.

What We Do
EarthEnable is transforming the way people live, by making homes healthier for families across rural Rwanda and Uganda. 70% of Rwandans and Ugandans live in homes with dirt floors which are dusty, unsanitary, and fertile breeding grounds for parasites and germs. While replacing a dirt floor with concrete has significant health benefits (e.g. reducing diarrhea by 50% and parasitic infections by 80%), concrete is unaffordable for many who need it.
EarthEnable addresses this pressing and ubiquitous problem by selling high-quality, earthen floors that are 70% cheaper than concrete with 90% less embedded energy. Earthen floors are prevalent in modern homes in the United States and are composed of natural materials (gravel, clay, sand, and laterite). EarthEnable trains and hires local masons to install the floors which are sealed using a proprietary drying oil that makes them waterproof, strong, and polished. In our first 3 years of operations, EarthEnable has installed floors for over 2,000 people and employed over 200 people.

About the Role
EarthEnable expanded to three new districts in the past 8 months and is looking to continue to scale and grow throughout 2018 and on into the future. We are seeking an experienced and passionate Rwanda Quality Assurance Manager who is excited to take a fast-growing and high-impact organization to new levels, alongside a passionate and hard-working team. The Rwanda Quality Assurance Manager would be responsible for all aspects of the quality of our floors, from inputs to processes to outputs, and customers’ overall satisfaction with our product. We are looking for an experienced manager and process builder to ensure that each and every step in our value chain, from procurement/sourcing to final customer surveys, has a clear standard for us all to follow. He/she would serve both a strategy and execution role, spending significant time analyzing and evaluating operations in the field as well as corresponding operational data in the office, and providing critical thought partnership to the CEO and management team. We believe this is the perfect role for a leader who is ready to take on the impact opportunity and challenge of a career.

The responsibilities of this role would include:
Strategy and Continuous Improvement

• Determine overall quality assurance strategy, and any quality certifications that should come with it (e.g. ISO 9001)
• Recommend changes to operational model to assure quality is managed throughout process
• Create clear quality standards for each step of the supply chain (from procurement/sourcing to final customer follow-ups)
• Determine and adapt specific roles and responsibilities for quality assurance department (including Call Center and Customer Experience team), and hire additional team members
• Determine key metrics and targets for quality each month (as a sub-KPI to our customer satisfaction KPI)
• Guide the development of testing tools and processes that will enhance quality
• Initiate, manage, and implement any strategic special projects that will enhance quality (e.g. managing and liaising with student teams working on tools)
• Work with Rwanda Managing Director to develop innovative incentive schemes and training models that motivate field staff, especially masons, to consistently deliver quality service
• Build capacity of teams to be able to constantly monitor quality assurance practices
• Work closely with EarthEnable CTO on R&D and product development to enhance either the floor itself or the processes for floor building that might improve the durability and/or affordability of our floors without sacrificing quality
•  Identify additional quality assurance risks by spending significant time with customers, drivers, sales reps, and masons
• Integrate additional quality assurance data tracking requirements into Salesforce
  Oversee Quality of Day-to-Day Process
• Develop systems and processes for day-to-day operations and ensure that processes are implemented according to strategy
• Customer identification: develop documentation and tracking processes and ensure we are following them (either through a sale or government contract)
• Material reception: develop documentation and tracking processes for material and inventory movements and ensure that we are documenting and following these processes
• Floor build: develop processes and procedures for assuring that floors are built according to our quality standard and ensure these processes and procedures are followed
• Ongoing maintenance: develop a process for ongoing checks on floors over time to ensure that any maintenance is attended to quickly, ensure that this process is followed
  Oversee Quality of Support Operations
• Develop systems and processes for support functions in operations and ensure that processes are implemented according to strategy
• Mason training: develop quality assurance practices and ensure that quality assurance practices are being followed during mason trainings; sign off on each training
• Procurement from quarries: develop quality assurance practices and ensure that all sand and laterite procured is according to standard and following processes; sign off on each load
•  Other procurement: develop quality assurance practices and ensure that tools, equipment, insecticide, and anything else is procured according to standard and following processes; sign off on each load
• Logistics: develop quality assurance practices and ensure that all material gets delivered to sites in a way that follows quality processes

Qualifications

• Excellent strategy skills; detail oriented and logical systems thinker
• Broad understanding quality assurance systems and processes, either through direct experience, indirect experience or academics
• Experience and skills in motivating and guiding a team, including those not directly managed, towards results
• Passionate about international development and social enterprise
• Flexible and adaptable to changing environments; thrives in a bootstrapped culture
• Hard working and gritty to push through challenges
• Ability to work on a variety of tasks at the same time and manage time
• Maturity and poise under stress
• Entrepreneurial attitude, creative problem solver, patient team-player with a sense of humor
• Experience with fast-growing social ventures is a plus
• Experience living and working in a developing country, preferably in East Africa, is a plus
• Several years (4+) of related work experience, ideally in quality assurance is a plus
• Graduate degree in a related field a plus, but not required

Job application procedure

Apply online at http://www.earthenable.org/applynow . In your cover letter, please state what excites you most about this role, and what you think will be most challenging about it.