Director of Manufacturing Engineering & Reliability

Stella-Jones•Lenexa, KS

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Manufacturing Engineering & Reliability is a senior, working leader responsible for establishing a new enterprise capability that elevates how Stella-Jones plants operate, maintain critical assets, integrate capital improvements, and adopt future-ready operational technologies. This is an operations-facing engineering role focused on the physical performance, process reliability, equipment capability, and infrastructure across our North American manufacturing network. It is not a product design, product development, or laboratory R&D position. The Director serves as the technical engine of the Operational Innovation & Excellence Center (OIEC), identifying constraints on the plant floor and turning them into practical, sustainable engineering solutions. Because this is a brand-new role and function, success will not come from managing an established department, but from building an operating model from the ground up. The Director must lead through a complex matrix (partnering with Plant Leadership, Operations, Maintenance, the PMO, IT/OT, and external engineering firms) establishing consensus on standards where none exist today, creating momentum amid ambiguity, and remaining directly accountable for field-level operational impact.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, Civil, or or Industrial) is strongly preferred. Equivalent technical education combined with proven engineering and operational leadership will be considered.
Demonstrated success leading teams, projects, units, or complex operational functions in high-accountability, performance-driven environments.
Sound working grasp of process execution, heavy equipment, process flow, controls, maintenance systems, or capital projects, with the intellectual agility to lead multidisciplinary initiatives.
Proven ability to enter an unfamiliar industry, ask incisive questions, assess operational reality, and leverage technical SMEs effectively.
Exceptional ability to communicate technical tradeoffs, capital risks, and business cases to both frontline workers and senior executive leadership.
Willingness and ability to travel 50%–60% across manufacturing facilities in the United States and Canada.

Nice To Haves

PE license, CMRP/CRL (reliability), PMP, or Lean/Six Sigma credentials are a plus.

Responsibilities

Translate plant floor bottlenecks into high-value engineering solutions that improve throughput, safety, and operating margins across treating, material handling, and utilities.
Partnering to analyze operational workflows, chemical treating processes, drying cycles, and yard material flow to eliminate constraints and reduce cycle times.
Evaluate industrial equipment condition, capability, obsolescence, and total cost of ownership; formulate sound engineering alternatives for retrofits, replacements, or capacity debottlenecking.
Apply disciplined problem-solving and CI methodologies with deep engineering rigor, ensuring process modifications are technically sound, safe, and adopted into standard operating procedures.
Identify high-impact solutions at one facility and adapt them across the network, accounting for unique plant layouts and regional operating contexts.
Develop and roll out consensus-based reliability frameworks, introducing asset criticality modeling, bad-actor resolution, and lifecycle asset management to plants across the enterprise.
Identify opportunities to establish practical corporate methodologies for preventive/predictive maintenance (PM/PdM), condition monitoring, vibration/oil analysis, and critical spares philosophy without overburdening plant personnel.
Act as the senior technical resource for plants facing recurring equipment failures, facilitating structured root-cause analysis (RCA) and permanent corrective redesigns.
Respect plant autonomy, day-to-day maintenance execution remains with local plant teams, while this role provides the technical standards, coaching, and engineering muscle to build long-term site capability.
Partner with Operations and the PMO at project inception to define technical problem statements, design bases, engineering alternatives, and preliminary technical scopes and estimates.
Partner with the PM and plant teams to translate operational needs into rigorous equipment and engineering specifications, interfacing directly with outside architectural/engineering (A&E) firms on technical requirements.
Review and challenge third-party engineering designs to guarantee that constructability, operability, maintainability, and safety codes are strictly satisfied prior to procurement and installation.
Identify, evaluate, and prioritize practical use cases for robotics, automated material handling, inline vision inspection, and sensor instrumentation that deliver verifiable payback (ROIC, EBITDA, EPS).
Partner closely with the separate IT/OT team to ensure plant controls, PLCs, edge devices, and historian architectures align seamlessly with enterprise cybersecurity and infrastructure standards.
Ensure automation programs integrate comprehensive change management, training, and standard work so plant crews embrace and sustain new operational technologies.
Formulate common design, construction, equipment, and documentation specifications for facilities, treating systems, and physical plant assets.
Create an accessible technical knowledge base documenting proven solutions, equipment benchmarks, vendor performance, and lessons learned across the network.
Directly lead and mentor the initial Engineering & Reliability team while establishing an active, trusted presence in the field that gains alignment across operations, finance, and safety.
Recognize technical knowledge gaps, identify and engage specialized external engineering experts and OEMs, manage their delivery tightly, and retain ultimate accountability for project success.