Director, Maintenance Engineering

Novolex•Lake Forest, IL

1d•$180,000 - $200,000

About The Position

The Director, Maintenance provides enterprise leadership for maintenance strategy, reliability performance, asset management, and maintenance execution across Novolex manufacturing operations. The role develops the enterprise maintenance strategy, identifies the organizational capabilities and resources needed to execute it, advances a standardized maintenance operating model, improves equipment uptime and asset reliability, strengthens preventive and predictive maintenance practices, and builds scalable maintenance capability across plants. The Director partners with Operations, Engineering, EH&S, Procurement, Finance, and business leadership to align maintenance priorities, improve operational performance, reduce unplanned downtime, and support safe, reliable, cost-effective manufacturing. The Director champions a safety-first maintenance culture; oversees maintenance strategy, systems, standards, and performance governance; and supports plant teams in improving reliability and execution. The role also builds maintenance leadership and technical capability, provides executive escalation support, leads cross-functional maintenance projects, and develops strategic OEM partnerships and service agreements. Travel is up to 50%.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive experience in maintenance leadership, reliability engineering, manufacturing operations, engineering, technical operations, or related manufacturing support functions.
8+ years of leadership experience leading multi-site maintenance, reliability, technical operations, or manufacturing support organizations.
Demonstrated success improving equipment reliability, uptime, preventive maintenance compliance, maintenance execution, asset performance, and maintenance cost effectiveness.
Experience implementing preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance, planning and scheduling, work order management, and maintenance performance governance.
Strong working knowledge of manufacturing equipment, plant utilities, maintenance systems, spare parts management, contractor management, and plant operations.
Experience using maintenance management systems, reliability tools, documentation systems, and performance reporting processes.
Demonstrated project management experience leading multi-site maintenance initiatives, OEM service programs, equipment installations, commissioning, and operational handoffs.
Experience managing OEM and contractor relationships, preventive maintenance programs, service-level expectations, technical training, warranty administration, and vendor performance.
Strong executive leadership, communication, stakeholder management, organizational agility, and cross-functional alignment capabilities.
Proven ability to coach, mentor, develop, and hold maintenance leaders and teams accountable across a matrixed operating environment.
Ability to influence and drive execution across manufacturing organizations with competing priorities and multiple stakeholder groups.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting packaging, plastics, extrusion, thermoforming, injection molding, molded fiber, paper, or related manufacturing operations.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Maintenance Management, Industrial Technology, or a related technical discipline preferred.

Responsibilities

Champion a safety-first maintenance culture and ensure compliance with company safety standards, maintenance procedures, equipment standards, and applicable regulatory requirements.
Develop and lead the enterprise maintenance strategy, including preventive and predictive maintenance, reliability improvement, asset lifecycle management, spare parts strategy, performance governance, and implementation priorities.
Assess organizational needs for executing the maintenance strategy, including capability gaps, resources, role clarity, skills development, governance routines, and support model requirements.
Partner with plant leadership and maintenance teams to improve equipment uptime, reduce unplanned downtime, increase mean time between failures, and strengthen maintenance execution discipline across manufacturing sites.
Standardize maintenance systems, processes, metrics, tools, work order practices, planning and scheduling routines, and reliability best practices across the manufacturing network.
Build organizational capability through leadership development, coaching, technical capability building, succession planning, and performance management for maintenance leaders and teams.
Provide executive-level escalation support for complex equipment reliability, maintenance execution, asset performance, spare parts, contractor, and operational continuity issues.
Partner with OEMs, Engineering, Capital Projects, Operations, and plant leadership on equipment design reviews, maintainability, startup readiness, commissioning, stabilization, and operational handoff for capital initiatives.
Lead cross-functional maintenance projects from business case and scope development through planning, execution, commissioning, operational handoff, and benefits realization, with accountability for safety, schedule, budget, quality, risk, and performance outcomes.
Develop and manage strategic OEM partnerships and service agreements covering standardized preventive and predictive maintenance programs, service intervals, technical support, critical spare parts, training, and equipment performance expectations.
Develop and maintain maintenance performance reporting, including uptime, downtime, work order completion, preventive maintenance compliance, maintenance cost, asset reliability, and contractor performance metrics.
Collaborate with Procurement and Finance to optimize maintenance spend, spare parts inventory, vendor performance, contractor utilization, and service agreements.
Perform additional duties as assigned.