Director, Maintenance Reliability & Work Management

CONAGRA • Denver, CO

19d • $135,000 - $200,000

About The Position

Reporting to the Senior Director of Engineering, the Director will lead the enterprise strategy, standards, capabilities, and continuous improvement for maintenance work management across Conagra manufacturing sites. The role establishes and sustains a consistent operating system for identifying, prioritizing, planning, scheduling, executing, closing, and improving proactive and reactive maintenance work. It partners with plant leadership and corporate functions to improve asset availability, maintenance productivity, schedule predictability, data quality, and sustainable business performance.

The position leads enterprise standards and governance, multi-site implementation, work-order lifecycle requirements, job-planning expectations, scheduling and backlog management, and the business strategy for SAP Plant Maintenance and related digital capabilities. It also governs maintenance data, defines performance measures, develops process documentation and training, builds organizational capability, and leads change for major deployments. The Director influences capital-project planning and asset turnover, aligns work management with related reliability and manufacturing priorities, and leads complex initiatives across sites and functions.

The role requires approximately 50% travel to manufacturing sites, with occasional additional travel based on business and site-support needs. Working hours may be adjusted to support plant operations, shutdowns, or implementations. Facility visits may involve walking, climbing stairs or ladders, kneeling, repetitive tasks, and lifting or carrying materials. Manufacturing sites have large moving equipment, potentially high noise levels, and varying temperatures.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Maintenance Reliability, Industrial Technology, Operations Management, or a related technical field, or an associate’s degree with equivalent relevant experience.
• At least 10 years of maintenance, reliability, engineering, or manufacturing experience, including leadership responsibility for maintenance planning, scheduling, work management, or asset reliability programs.
• Progressive maintenance and reliability experience in a manufacturing environment, including maintenance planning, scheduling, supervision, or management.
• Demonstrated success leading maintenance, reliability, and work management programs in manufacturing, industrial, or consumer packaged goods environments, including implementing and sustaining enterprise standards across multiple manufacturing sites.
• Expert knowledge of maintenance work management, including work identification, prioritization, planning, scheduling, execution, closeout, backlog management, shutdowns, preventive maintenance, and continuous improvement.
• Strong working knowledge of SAP Plant Maintenance or a comparable enterprise asset management system.
• Experience with equipment master data, MRO materials management, project-to-maintenance turnover, KPI definition, performance analysis, and practical improvement planning.
• Experience developing technical documentation and training, coaching plant teams, and leading organizational change.
• Advanced Excel and data-analysis skills.
• Experience influencing across functions and organizational levels, managing competing priorities, and leading complex initiatives without relying solely on direct authority.
• Strong written, verbal, facilitation, stakeholder-management, and executive-communication skills.
• Collaborative, customer-focused leadership style with strong problem-solving skills and credibility from the plant floor through senior leadership.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced SAP Plant Maintenance experience with master data, bills of material, task lists, maintenance plans, materials, scheduling, statuses, revisions, and deadline monitoring.
• Experience with Power BI, SharePoint, Teams, and PowerPoint.
• Experience in food, consumer packaged goods, process, or high-speed packaging manufacturing.
• Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional, Certified Maintenance and Reliability Technician, Project Management Professional, Lean Six Sigma, or comparable professional certification.

Responsibilities

• Lead the enterprise Maintenance Work Management strategy, including its vision, standards, implementation roadmap, role clarity, and governance model.
• Influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners to advance proactive and reactive maintenance practices and support enterprise organizational, process, system, and behavioral change.
• Establish an enterprise operating framework for work identification and control, prioritization, job planning, materials readiness, scheduling, execution, closeout, backlog management, shutdown coordination, and continuous improvement.
• Align plant and corporate leaders on maturity priorities, improvement roadmaps, adoption expectations, and performance outcomes for network-wide implementation and sustainment.
• Establish enterprise requirements and decision rights across the work-order lifecycle, from request and prioritization through planning, execution, feedback, completion, and closure.
• Shape job-planning expectations that improve safety, labor productivity, materials readiness, execution quality, equipment documentation, and post-job learning.
• Drive network-wide scheduling and backlog governance to improve capacity visibility, schedule compliance, shutdown readiness, and prioritization of critical work.
• Direct the enterprise business strategy and requirements for SAP Plant Maintenance and related digital capabilities, partnering with IT, functional teams, data governance, and site stakeholders on functionality, reporting, workflows, and enhancements.
• Govern equipment master data, functional-location structures, bills of material, task lists, maintenance plans, work centers, statuses, coding, and related records.
• Define enterprise performance management for work management, using KPIs and insights to guide priorities, support, progress assessment, and leadership decisions.
• Establish a framework for controlled process documentation, standard work, training materials, system-utilization standards, and implementation playbooks.
• Build organizational capability and a talent pipeline through role-based development, leadership forums, cross-site communities of practice, coaching, and targeted technical support.
• Lead enterprise change strategy for major deployments, aligning stakeholders, communications, capability building, adoption measures, and sustainment routines.
• Influence Engineering and project leaders to incorporate maintenance and reliability requirements into capital planning and ensure new or modified assets transition with strategies, data, documentation, training, and planned-work requirements.
• Align work management strategy with MRO, reliability engineering, asset care, lubrication, technician capability, safety, quality, and Manufacturing Excellence priorities.
• Lead complex, multi-site initiatives and influence site teams, functional partners, contractors, and consulting resources to deliver measurable business outcomes.
• Promote safety, inclusion, engagement, accountability, and continuous improvement while modeling Conagra values across the manufacturing network.
• Travel approximately 50% to manufacturing sites and adjust working hours when needed to support plant operations, shutdowns, or implementations.

Benefits

• Comprehensive healthcare plans, wellness incentive program, mental wellbeing support, and fitness reimbursement.
• Bonus incentive opportunity.
• Matching 401(k) and stock purchase plan.
• Career development opportunities, employee resource groups, on-demand learning, and tuition reimbursement.
• Paid time off, parental leave, flexible work schedules (subject to location and role), and volunteer opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director