Founded in 1890 by Englishman Alfred Grace Thompson, a saddle and harness maker with a love for sport, A.G. Thompson Pty Ltd began business in Bay Street, Brighton, Victoria. By WWI, the company was already established as one of Australia's leading hand‑made cricket ball manufacturers.

130 years on, Kookaburra Sport remains a 100% Australian family‑owned business, with offices in Australia, India, New Zealand and the UK. We employ around 200 people globally, specialising in cricket, football and hockey equipment, as well as bespoke teamwear, clothing and footwear. We sell predominantly through retailers, online, and direct to Leagues and Associations in over 50 countries worldwide.

The opportunity

We are seeking a Quality Manager to take full ownership of the quality function focused primarily on ball manufacturing at our site in Moorabbin. In this important role you will be responsible for setting the quality strategy and completing consistent, accurate testing across inbound, in‑process and final product checks. You will work closely with the operations and leadership teams to maintain production standards, drive continuous improvement, and support new product development - whilst we are proud of our traditional manufacturing methods, we are always seeking innovations to product and process.

Key responsibilities

- Prioritise strategic and day to day quality activity across inbound, in‑process, and final product testing
- Help define the quaility requirements as part of stabilising for the future, including defining how routine tests and lineside process/quality improvement can best be supported by the production team




- Represent the critical importance of ball quality in leadership discussions; escalating systemic issues to promote prompt resolution
- Perform routine ball performance and quality tests to established methods accurately and consistently (e.g. compression, bounce/rebound, weight, dimensions, seam and stitching checks, hardness)
- Support new product development and process evolution by designing test protocols for prototype/trial samples and reporting results promptly
- Record and maintain test results, ensuring results are well catalogued and easily accessed, seeks trends in the data with a focus on process variability reduction
- Manage maintenance and calibration of laboratory equipment as well as promoting good general lab housekeeping/5S
- Produce a monthly quality summary for leadership, e.g. defect trends, top nonconformance themes, supplier performance, and actions in progress

About you

- Strong technical background in implementing quality systems in a batch manufacturing environment
- Able to deal with complex multi‑variate quality concerns, experience with leather/textiles would be advantageous
- Working familiarity with quality management systems, to aid in driving a robust discipline to the quality function, aligned to ISO principles
- Diligent and tenacious. See the value in ensuring required tests and processes are consistently applied and able to keep digging when issues become complicated

Your application will include the following questions:

- Which of the following statements best describes your right to work in Australia?
- What's your expected annual base salary?
- How many years' experience do you have as a Quality Manager?
- How much notice are you required to give your current employer?
- How many years of Quality Engineering experience do you have?

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📌 Quality Manager (Melbourne)
🏢 Kookaburra Sport
📍 Melbourne