The Opportunity
Reporting directly to the Plant Manager, you will take overall responsibility for engineering and maintenance activity across the site.
You will lead the Engineering Manager directly, with wider responsibility for the site's engineering, maintenance, reliability and technical teams, including mechanical, electrical and multiskilled technicians.
A major priority will be to help move the site away from a predominantly reactive maintenance culture towards a structured preventative and predictive maintenance strategy, while introducing Lean and Continuous Improvement techniques that genuinely work within a heavy-process manufacturing environment.
This isn't about implementing Lean for the sake of it.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide senior leadership across all engineering, maintenance and reliability activities on site.
- Lead, coach and develop the Engineering Managers, engineers, technicians and maintenance professionals.
- Establish clear engineering standards, processes and performance expectations.
- Develop engineering capability across mechanical, electrical and multiskilled disciplines.
- Transform the maintenance approach from reactive maintenance towards preventative and predictive maintenance.
- Continue the implementation and effective use of SAP / CMMS to plan, manage and optimise maintenance activity.
- Improve key engineering and reliability measures including OEE / GE, MTBF and MTTR.
- Lead root cause analysis and failure investigations following significant equipment breakdowns.
- Identify and address single points of failure and critical asset risks.
- Develop asset management strategies focused on reliability, availability and lifecycle cost.
- Champion appropriate Lean Manufacturing and Continuous Improvement techniques including TPM, 5S, Kaizen, Value Stream Mapping, SMED and RCA.
- Lead and support CapEx projects, equipment upgrades and plant improvement programmes.
- Develop robust engineering work standards, processes and documentation.
- Build strong relationships with the engineering and production teams and create a culture of ownership, accountability and continuous improvement.
About You
We are looking for a senior engineering or maintenance leader who has operated successfully within a manufacturing or process environment.
You will ideally have experience of: Leading engineering and maintenance teams within a heavy process manufacturing environment.
Managing multidisciplinary mechanical, electrical and multiskilled engineering teams.
Developing and implementing preventative and predictive maintenance strategies.
Improving plant reliability and reducing unplanned downtime.
Using CMMS systems, ideally SAP.
Implementing Lean Manufacturing and Continuous Improvement techniques.
Using data and KPIs such as OEE, MTBF and MTTR to drive engineering performance.
Managing critical assets, equipment reliability and engineering risk.
Delivering or supporting CapEx and engineering improvement projects.
Leading teams through change while maintaining strong engagement and accountability.
The Right Person
This role will suit an experienced engineering leader who can quickly understand a plant, identify the major reliability and maintenance challenges and establish priorities.
You will need to be comfortable operating at both a strategic and operational level.
The business isn't looking for someone who simply arrives with a textbook Lean programme and attempts to impose it on the site.
Instead, you'll need to understand the existing operation, engage the engineering and production teams, build credibility and implement practical improvements that deliver measurable results.
You should be confident challenging existing ways of working, establishing better standards and processes, and creating a more proactive engineering culture.
Most importantly, you'll need to be capable of hitting the ground running.