Manufacturing Maintenance Planner - Buffalo, NY

Maintenance Planner

We exist to make food the world loves. But we do more than that. Our company is a place that prioritizes being a force for good, a place to expand learning, explore new perspectives and reimagine new possibilities, every day. We look for people who want to bring their best bold thinkers with big hearts who challenge one another and grow together. Because becoming the undisputed leader in food means surrounding ourselves with people who are hungry for what's next.

We are looking for a Maintenance Planner to help strengthen equipment reliability, maintenance execution, and long-term asset performance within our manufacturing operation in Buffalo, New York. In this role, you will lead and deliver improvements in the effectiveness, quality, and sustainability of asset care strategies for your platform. You will own key elements of maintenance planning and scheduling, CMMS health and data accuracy, and the ongoing development of maintenance processes that support plant performance.

This is a strong opportunity for someone who brings both technical maintenance knowledge and the ability to influence across functions. You will work closely with maintenance, operations, engineering, quality, and safety partners to improve how work is prioritized, planned, and executed so the plant can meet reliability, budget, and schedule goals.

What You'll Do

• Lead food and human safety through strong safety leadership and disciplined maintenance practices.
• Support a culture that reduces risk by helping drive regular, documented equipment safety assessments, including initial assessments during startup and qualification phases and annual reviews within the planned maintenance process.
• Help cultivate a food safety culture committed to producing safe food in compliance with company policies and regulatory requirements.
• Lead implementation of asset care strategies across the platform, with a focus on critical A and B assets, to improve reliability, cost performance, and schedule attainment.
• Communicate clearly with platform teams and plant leaders about the tradeoffs between performance, cost, and asset health, including maintenance spending trends and forecasts by work type and category.
• Serve as the early management point person for asset care strategies and Maximo setup tied to new capital projects.
• Own CMMS data accuracy, Maximo standards, and effective system usage for the team.
• Use advanced data analysis to support problem solving, identify emerging issues, and proactively improve maintenance performance.
• Maintain technical documentation for the team.
• Incorporate asset care strategies and maintenance planning and scheduling into platform improvement plans and deployment efforts.
• Participate in weekly, monthly, and quarterly direction-setting routines and help advance daily plans when needed.
• Lead the development, implementation, training, and execution of maintenance planning and scheduling processes.
• Independently create high-quality preventive maintenance tasks and job plans with clearly documented labor, materials, tools, and work instructions.
• Build work schedules that balance equipment needs, labor availability, and plant priorities.
• Partner with production planning and platform teams to optimize equipment access and labor utilization.
• Create, lead, and measure an effective work prioritization process with input from operations, engineering, quality, safety, and other plant stakeholders.
• Support implementation of maintenance foundational systems such as LMS, shutdown planning, emergency response-related maintenance processes, and predictive maintenance in alignment with site strategy.
• Partner with maintenance leadership on asset care linkages to defect handling and breakdown elimination.
• Mentor others and help build capability in maintenance processes, standards, and best practices.
• Continue building technical knowledge of equipment, systems, and plant operations so you can evaluate incoming work and develop high-quality work plans.
• Communicate scope of work clearly through both written documentation and verbal direction.

Minimum Qualifications

• High school diploma.
• 2+ years of experience in a manufacturing technical field.
• Demonstrated leadership experience and success working in a highly collaborative environment.
• Experience driving results through process discipline and teamwork.
• Proven success reducing losses and improving performance in a manufacturing setting.
• Demonstrated technical capability and knowledge of unit operations and machinery within at least one production platform.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to work across maintenance, operations, engineering, quality, safety, and other plant teams.
• Foundational knowledge of maintenance data systems and decision-making tools, such as Maximo or SAP.
• Practical knowledge of maintenance planning and scheduling and CMMS use.
• Broad knowledge of materials, fabrication methods, engineering fundamentals, fastening methods, and lubrication principles.
• Craft worker experience or very strong knowledge of craft duties, capabilities, and skill levels.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a technical, science, engineering, or mechatronics-related field.
• 4+ years of experience in a manufacturing technical field.
• Professional certifications such as CMRP or MLTI.

Additional Considerations

• This role is eligible for a $5,000 sign-on bonus. Bonus details, eligibility requirements, and payout timing will be shared during the recruiting process.
• International relocation or international remote working arrangements (outside of the US) will not be considered.
• Applicants for this position must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. General Mills will not sponsor applicants for this position for work visas.

The salary range for this position is:

$71,300 - $107,000 Annual

At General Mills we strive for each employee's pay at any point in their career to reflect their experiences performance and skills for their current role. The salary range for this role represents the numerous factors considered in the hiring decisions including, but not limited to, educations, skills, work experience, certifications, etc. As such, pay for the successful candidate(s) could fall anywhere within the stated range.

Beyond base salary, General Mills offers a competitive Total Rewards package focusing on your overall well-being. We are proud to offer a foundation of health benefits, retirement and financial wellbeing, time off programs, wellbeing support and perks. Benefits may vary by role, country, region, union status, and other employment status factors. You may also be eligible to participate in an annual incentive program. An incentive award, if any, depends on various factors, including, individual and organizational performance.

Applicants must meet a minimum 18-year age qualification.

General Mills is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital or familial status, status regarding public assistance, or membership or activity in a local human rights commission.

If you need to request an accommodation during the application or hiring process, please fill out our online accommodation request form.