Plant Engineer

Build and lead a world-class engineering and maintenance organization that maximizes plant reliability, improves manufacturing efficiency, reduces operating costs through engineering and automation, and delivers capital investments that generate measurable business results.

The Plant Engineer serves as the single point of accountability for Maintenance, Facilities, Engineering & Automation, and Capital Project Management. Success is measured not simply by projects completed or problems solved, but by building sustainable systems, developing a high-performing technical organization, and delivering measurable improvements in plant performance.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Maintenance & Reliability

• Build and own a comprehensive preventive and predictive maintenance (PM/PdM) program covering production, packaging, refrigeration, and other critical plant equipment.
• Implement, optimize, and maintain the plant's CMMS to schedule work, maintain accurate asset history, measure maintenance performance, and manage spare parts.
• Develop a maintenance staffing and coverage model capable of supporting a multi-shift manufacturing operation.
• Develop the technical capabilities of maintenance employees through training, coaching, performance expectations, and skills development.
• Establish and maintain a critical-spares strategy, including min/max inventory levels and vendor lead-time management.
• Lead root-cause analysis of significant or recurring equipment failures and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
• Improve equipment reliability by increasing Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and reducing Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).

Facilities & Utilities

• Ensure reliable operation of critical plant utilities and infrastructure, including ammonia/glycol refrigeration, boilers, compressed air, water treatment, HVAC, freezers, and coolers.
• Maintain compliance with applicable OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) and EPA Risk Management Program (RMP) requirements associated with ammonia refrigeration.
• Manage facility infrastructure and capital upkeep, including roofing, docks, freezer/cooler integrity, utilities, and other critical building systems.
• Manage outside contractors and technical service providers to ensure quality, safety, cost control, and timely execution.
• Identify opportunities to reduce utility and energy cost per unit produced.
• Identify engineering and automation opportunities that improve capacity, reliability, labor productivity, safety, quality, or cost.
• Develop financial justification and ROI/payback analysis for automation, equipment, and process investments.
• Lead engineering projects involving new equipment, line automation, robotics, controls, and process upgrades.
• Drive automation initiatives that reduce manual and repetitive labor while improving manufacturing consistency.
• Manage equipment specifications, engineering change control, commissioning, and validation.
• Partner with Production, Quality, and Food Safety to ensure equipment and process changes meet operational and sanitary-design requirements.

Capital Project Management

• Own the plant's capital-project portfolio, including prioritization, budget allocation, financial justification, and alignment with business strategy.
• Lead and hold the Project Manager accountable for project scheduling, vendor and contractor coordination, installation, commissioning, budget performance, and completion.
• Establish disciplined capital-project governance, including business cases, stage-gate reviews, ROI validation, and post-project audits.
• Ensure approved capital investments produce the operational and financial results used to justify the investment.
• Regularly report capital-project status, spending, risk, timing, and realized ROI to plant and company leadership.

Leadership & Business Partnership

• Serve as a key member of the plant leadership team and align Engineering and Maintenance priorities with production and business needs.
• Own maintenance, facilities, engineering, and capital budgets and report performance against plan.
• Build a culture of accountability, urgency, disciplined execution, and problem-solving within the Engineering and Maintenance organization.
• Develop leaders and technical talent capable of sustaining plant performance as the organization grows.
• Champion safety within Engineering and Maintenance, including LOTO, confined-space, electrical, contractor, and ammonia-specific safety requirements.
• Establish clear performance expectations and use data to hold the organization accountable for results.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Accountability

Takes ownership of commitments and results. Establishes clear expectations and follows through when performance falls short.

Technical Leadership

Possesses sufficient engineering and maintenance expertise to challenge assumptions, establish technical standards, and lead experienced technical teams.

Business & Financial Acumen

Understands the financial impact of engineering decisions and can develop and defend ROI, payback, cost-savings, and capital-investment cases.

Data-Driven Problem Solving

Uses downtime, OEE, MTBF, MTTR, maintenance cost, labor, and other operating data to identify problems and make decisions.

Execution & Urgency

Moves quickly from problem identification to action while maintaining appropriate engineering, safety, and financial discipline.

Builds strong teams, develops technical talent, addresses performance issues, delegates effectively, and creates accountability throughout the organization.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Works effectively with Production, Quality, Food Safety, Finance, Supply Chain, and plant leadership to achieve shared business outcomes.

Can bring structure and discipline to evolving organizations, implement new systems, overcome resistance, and create sustainable new ways of working.

Safety Leadership

Demonstrates personal ownership of employee, contractor, process, and equipment safety and incorporates safety into engineering and maintenance decisions.

EXPERIENCE & TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial Engineering, or related technical field preferred.
• PE certification or equivalent technical qualification preferred.
• 7-10+ years of progressive maintenance and/or engineering leadership experience within food, beverage, CPG, or similar manufacturing environments.
• Dairy, ice cream, refrigerated, or frozen-food manufacturing experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience leading maintenance and reliability organizations.
• Demonstrated experience managing significant capital projects from financial justification through commissioning.
• Experience managing departmental and/or capital budgets.

Technical Capabilities

• Working knowledge of industrial ammonia/glycol refrigeration systems and associated PSM/RMP requirements.
• Understanding of PLC-based automation and industrial controls and the ability to effectively evaluate automation and robotics solutions.
• Experience implementing, administering, or significantly improving a CMMS.
• Strong understanding of preventive and predictive maintenance principles.
• Understanding of equipment reliability concepts, including MTBF, MTTR, downtime analysis, and root-cause failure analysis.
• Understanding of food-manufacturing fundamentals, GMPs, and sanitary equipment design sufficient to effectively partner with Quality and Food Safety.
• Ability to analyze manufacturing and financial data and translate findings into executable engineering priorities.

24-MONTH A-PLAYER SUCCESS PROFILE

• Equipment reliability has materially improved and unplanned downtime has declined.
• A disciplined PM/PdM and CMMS system is established and consistently used.
• Critical assets have measurable reliability standards and ownership.
• OEE has improved on targeted or constraint production lines.
• Automation investments have produced documented labor or productivity savings.
• Capital projects are consistently delivered on time, on budget, and against approved ROI expectations.
• Critical utilities and plant infrastructure are proactively managed.
• Engineering and Maintenance employees understand expectations and are held accountable for performance.
• Technical leaders have been developed who can independently run their areas.
• Safety performance within Engineering and Maintenance demonstrates sustained improvement.
• Engineering decisions are increasingly driven by operating data, financial return, and business priorities.

THE ULTIMATE MEASURE OF SUCCESS

The Plant Engineer builds the people, systems, equipment reliability, and engineering discipline necessary for the plant to consistently perform at a higher level - rather than becoming the person who must personally solve every problem.