Manager Service Underwriting

At Rite-Hite, your work makes an impact. As the global leader in loading dock and door equipment, we design and deliver solutions that keep our customers safe, secure, and productive. Here, you’ll find innovation, stability, and the chance to grow your career as part of a team that’s always looking ahead.  Primary Purpose & Scope The Service Underwriting Manager leads the Service Underwriting team, ensuring timely , accurate parts sourcing, vendor coordination, and order execution while standardizing processes, improving team performance, and enabling field teams to focus on customers. This is a new function where the team will centralize customer quote intake, scope development, parts identification and sourcing, estimating, quote preparation, and customer follow up so service needs can be supported efficiently and consistently.   This role is a critical operational and customer support function for the Service organization. Today, quoting is largely handled by sales representatives in the field. Over time, this function will evolve into a centralized and scalable customer solutions operation designed to support a large volume of quotes per month with speed, accuracy, and strong customer responsiveness .     The Service Underwriting Manager reports to the Distribution Operations Excellence Leader, who sets strategy, priorities, and performance expectations for the function. The Service Underwriting Manager , in turn, leads the Service Underwriting team, driving performance, workload balancing, coaching, and continuous development across the team.   Values and Culture Expectations All employees are expected to consistently demonstrate Rite-Hite’s Values in Action. These values shape the way we work together and how we serve our customers.   This includes modeling company values in daily interactions, decision-making, and how work is accomplished.  Employees are expected to contribute to a culture of accountability, collaboration, and respect.  Essential Duties & Responsibilities Safety Responsibilities: Support and promote a culture of safety. Follow all Company and OSHA safety policies and procedures. Proper use of required personal protective equipment (PPE) Report hazards, near misses and incidents promptly Job Responsibilities: People leadership The ideal leader brings a strong people-leadership mindset, analytical thinking, operational discipline, and a bias for action. This person must be confident, resourceful, and able to take full ownership of a new function, build the process, develop the team, and solve problems as the business scales. Lead the Service Underwriting team, driving performance, workload balancing, coaching, and continuous development Service Writing & Quote Management Build the Service Writing process from the ground up, including intake, scoping, estimating, quote preparation, and follow-up. Centralize quote support currently handled by field sales representatives. Ensure customer requests are translated into clear, accurate, and executable quotes that meet customer requirements. Manage a high-volume quote environment while maintaining speed, accuracy, and consistency. Establish standards for quote quality, documentation, pricing assumptions, exclusions, approvals, and response times. Serve as an escalation point for complex quoting questions, customer issues, and scope clarification needs. Parts Identification & Sourcing Own parts sourcing standards and processes, ensuring consistent execution across ordering, quoting, and vendor management Oversee complex sourcing and escalations, resolving supplier, pricing, availability, and fulfillment issues within defined guardrails Build the team’s capability to accurately identify parts and materials required to support customer service and repair needs. Develop processes, tools, and reference materials that enable Service Writing team members to identify the correct parts based on equipment information, service requirements, technicians findings, and customer requests. Research alternative sourcing options when standard or OEM parts are unavailable, back-ordered, obsolete, or have extended lead times. Establish clear escalation paths for difficult to identify, obsolete, superseded, or unavailable parts. Develop and maintain institutional knowledge around common equipment, parts, suppliers, substitutions, and sourcing strategies to improve team speed and accuracy over time. Identify recurring parts and sourcing challenges and work cross functionally to develop longer term solutions that improve service execution. Cross Functional Collaboration Partner with Service & Sales leaders, prioritizing work to support customer commitments and field execution Work closely with Supply Chain, Product Support, Tech Support, Sales, Service Support, and field teams to gather information and resolve quote-related issues. Partner with Supply Chain and Service Support to identify parts availability, sourcing questions, lead times, and vendor coordination as needed. Collaborate with Product Support to confirm product details, configuration questions, and technical requirements that impact quote accuracy. Work with Tech Support to resolve technical scope questions, repair feasibility concerns, and customer-specific service requirements. Support field sales teams by providing a centralized quoting resource and clear ownership for customer solutions. Communicate clearly with internal stakeholders regarding open issues, quote status, process changes, service risks, and improvement initiatives. Process improvement & automation Drive vendor performance and continuous improvement, improving sourcing efficiency, turnaround time, and process consistency Evaluate current quoting workflows to identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, rework, and opportunities for standardization. Build standard work, SOPs, templates, checklists, training guides, and escalation paths to support consistent exe