Maintenance Shift Supervisor

Maintenance Shift Supervisor

The Maintenance Shift Supervisor is responsible for leading and working alongside the maintenance team assigned to a designated shift in Cayuga Milk Ingredients' 24/7/365 dairy manufacturing environment. The Maintenance Supervisor leads the maintenance technicians on an assigned shift and is accountable for equipment uptime, response time, and work quality across both plants during that shift.

This is a working supervisor role. We expect this person on the floor with tools in hand when the situation calls for it, not managing from a shop office. You will be the senior technical decision-maker on your shift.

The Maintenance Shift Supervisor performs preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance activities; prioritizes work orders; troubleshoots mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, pneumatic, hydraulic, and PLC/control system issues; and ensures maintenance activities are completed in accordance with company standards, food safety requirements, regulatory expectations, and established maintenance programs.

This position works with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Sanitation, Warehouse, Safety, and other departments to minimize downtime, improve equipment reliability, support production objectives, and maintain a safe and compliant manufacturing environment. The Maintenance Shift Supervisor also serves as a technical resource and coach for maintenance employees, helping develop the team's skills, knowledge, and ability to respond effectively to equipment and operational challenges.

The successful candidate will demonstrate strong technical expertise, sound judgment, leadership capability, and the ability to remain effective in a fast-paced manufacturing environment where equipment reliability, product quality, food safety, and uninterrupted production are critical.

Key Responsibilities: Lead the Shift

• Run the maintenance shift: assign work, set priorities, and keep the crew focused on what matters most to production right now.
• Be on the floor. Lead breakdown response personally and stay with the job until the line is running and the fix holds.
• Hold a shift handoff with the incoming and outgoing supervisors and with production. Nothing open should be a surprise to the next shift.
• Coach technicians at the machine on troubleshooting method, sanitary practice, and workmanship.
• Hold the crew accountable for attendance, safety behavior, work quality, and CMMS discipline. Escalate performance issues to the Maintenance Manager.

Keep Equipment Running

• Own uptime on your shift. Drive fast, correct diagnosis and lasting repairs rather than repeat temporary fixes.
• Support startups, sterilization cycles, CIP, changeovers, and shutdowns alongside production.
• Execute planned and preventive maintenance on schedule. Protect PM time from being consumed by reactive work wherever possible.
• Escalate to the Maintenance Manager, Maintenance Engineer, or OEM support when a problem exceeds what the shift can resolve.
• Feed root cause analysis with facts from the floor: what failed, what was observed, what was replaced, and why.

Safety

• Enforce lockout/tagout, confined space, hot work, elevated work, and electrical safe work practices without exception.
• Review the job with the technician before the work starts. No shortcuts on energy isolation or PPE, including under production pressure.
• Report and respond to incidents and near misses on shift and support the investigation.
• Keep contractors working on your shift within CMI safety rules and GMP requirements.

Food Safety, Hygiene, and GMP

• Maintain the plant to food-grade standards. Sanitary welds, food-grade lubricants, proper gasket and seal materials, and no temporary repairs that create a contamination risk.
• Enforce GMP in every maintenance activity: tool control, hygienic zoning, foreign material control, and full cleanup and release of equipment before production restarts.
• Work with QA on hygienic design, post-maintenance sanitation and verification, and release of equipment after a repair.
• Understand how maintenance work affects sterility and shelf life in aseptic and ESL systems, and act accordingly.
• Keep the shift audit-ready at all times for FDA, NYS Ag & Markets, customer, and third-party (SQF / FSSC) audits.

Documentation and Parts

• Ensure every work order is opened, updated, and closed in the CMMS with real repair detail, parts used, and labor time.
• Keep drawings, equipment history, and PM feedback accurate so the next technician is not starting from scratch.
• Manage parts usage on shift: pull correctly, record issues, and flag critical spares before a stockout stops a line.
• Support reliability and KPI reporting with clean, honest data from the shift.

Qualifications: Education & Experience

• High school diploma or GED required. Technical degree, trade school, or completed apprenticeship preferred.
• Minimum 10 years of hands-on industrial maintenance experience in food and beverage manufacturing.
• Industrial electrical, PLC, refrigeration, boiler, or welding certifications are a plus.
• HACCP, GMP, or SQF training preferred, or willingness to complete it after hire.
• Proven experience running or leading a maintenance shift in a 24/7 plant.
• Demonstrated understanding of hygienic design, GMPs, and sanitation requirements in a regulated food plant.
• Experience in dairy, aseptic, ESL, or other high-hygiene processing is strongly preferred.
• Experience working alongside production and QA during upsets, holds, and audits.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Mechanical: pumps, homogenizers, separators, valves and valve clusters, heat exchangers, agitators, gearboxes, conveyors, and filling and packaging equipment.
• Sanitary systems: CIP circuits and chemistry, sanitary fittings and gasket materials, steam barriers, and aseptic and ESL filler components.
• Electrical: motors, VFDs, starters, control panels, and safe troubleshooting of 480V three-phase systems.
• Controls and instrumentation: PLC and HMI familiarity for troubleshooting (Allen-Bradley and Siemens), sensors, transmitters, and calibration of temperature, pressure, flow, and level instruments.
• Ability to read and work from P&IDs, electrical schematics, and OEM manuals.
• Utilities: boilers, refrigeration and ammonia or glycol systems, compressed air, and water and wastewater systems.
• CMMS use for work orders, PM execution, and parts transactions.
• Welding, fabrication, and precision maintenance skills (alignment, bearings, lubrication) are a plus. Sanitary TIG welding is a strong plus.

Physical Requirements

• On site in Auburn, NY. Rotating shift work, including nights, weekends, and holidays, with on-call coverage.
• Most of the shift on the production floor in wet, hot, cold, and noisy areas, with required PPE.
• Must wear required personal protective equipment (PPE) as necessary to safely perform job duties.
• Ability to stand, sit, and carry out tasks throughout a full shift.
• Frequent standing, walking, climbing ladders and stairs, working at height, and entering confined spaces.
• Physically capable of standing, bending, stooping, kneeling, reaching, twisting, lifting, pushing, pulling, climbing, balancing, and crouching as needed.
• Ability to navigate all areas of the facility, including office spaces, warehouse areas, and the exterior perimeter.
• Able to lift and move items weighing up to 50 pounds independently and heavier objects with reasonable accommodations and working in awkward positions during repairs.
• Visual acuity sufficient to perform job duties accurately.
• Capable of assessing weights, judging distances, and working at various heights.
• Extended hours during breakdowns, startups, shutdowns, and audits.

Work Schedule

Day Shift: 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The role follows a rotating 2-2-3 schedule: two days on, two days off, three days on, followed by two days off, two days on, and three days off. Team members will work every other weekend, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. (2) Openings

Night