Engineering & Maintenance Manager

CREMER North America, LP•Cincinnati, OH

About The Position

The Engineering and Maintenance Manager sets strategic direction for engineering, maintenance, reliability, equipment, instrumentation, controls, and automation across the company’s manufacturing operations for personal care products and oleochemicals. The role ensures plants, assets, and technical systems support safety, quality, productivity, delivery, customer requirements, and business growth. As a member of the Extended Leadership Team and a business partner to Operations, the manager leads a small corporate team of subject matter expert engineers and project managers, while partnering with Plant Managers and site teams. The role establishes standards, drives technical excellence, builds capabilities, and strengthens plant ownership through the company’s World Class Manufacturing operating system.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Industrial Technology Management, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
7–10 years of progressive experience in engineering, maintenance, reliability, or a related manufacturing leadership role.
Experience setting strategy and achieving results by working across teams.
Strong knowledge of preventive and predictive maintenance, maintenance planning and scheduling, root cause analysis, asset lifecycle management, and CMMS.
Strong business judgment, prioritization, and stakeholder-management skills.
Working knowledge and practical experience with CMMS systems.
Proven experience leading structured continuous improvement programs with measurable business results.
Ability to develop and coach cross-functional teams in WCM/TPM/Lean methodologies.
Strong analytical capabilities, KPI management, and systematic loss analysis.
Demonstrated ability to establish standards, sustain improvements, and build a proactive problem-solving culture.

Nice To Haves

MBA or advanced degree.
Experience in 24/7 manufacturing environments.
Experience with liquids, solids, batch, and/or continuous processing.
Experience in personal care, oleochemicals, chemicals, consumer products, food, or other regulated manufacturing environments.
Knowledge of World Class Manufacturing, Total Productive Maintenance, Lean manufacturing, structured problem solving, and change management.
Experience with instrumentation, controls, automation, and capital-project execution.

Responsibilities

Develop and lead a multi-year roadmap for engineering, maintenance, reliability, equipment, instrumentation, controls, and automation.
Translate corporate objectives, customer requirements, and plant needs into prioritized standards, investments, projects, and capability improvements.
Manage company assets using equipment criticality, preventive and predictive maintenance, planning and scheduling, spare parts, equipment history, and CMMS standards.
Manage the department budget and own the asset-management framework and asset master plan to improve equipment capability, reliability, availability, lifecycle cost, and overall equipment effectiveness.
Partner with Plant Managers to establish site action plans, ownership, resources, and priorities while maintaining local accountability for execution.
Advance the World Class Manufacturing operating system, including maintenance excellence, autonomous maintenance, focused improvement, early equipment management, structured problem solving, and capability building.
Provide technical leadership for major or recurring equipment failures, ensuring root cause analysis, corrective actions, and cross-site learning.
Establish engineering standards for equipment design, maintainability, controls, instrumentation, automation, commissioning, documentation, qualification and validation, and Management of Change.
Lead engineering and capital projects from business case and scope through design, procurement, installation, commissioning, handover, and post-project review.
Support annual capital planning and recommend priorities based on safety, quality, compliance, customer requirements, asset risk, capacity, cost, and strategic value.
Lead and develop a small team of engineers and project managers, establishing priorities, roles, decision rights, and performance expectations.
Mentor plant engineering and maintenance managers and strengthen technical capability through training, development, and succession planning.
Partner with Operations, EHSS, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, Commercial, customers, suppliers, contractors, OEMs, and service providers.
Manage assigned budgets, contracted services, resources, and escalation of significant operational or technical risks.
Lead deployment of the Planned Maintenance pillar roadmap, from asset assessment and restoration through information systems, periodic maintenance, advanced reliability practices, and spare parts management.
Collaborate with Autonomous Maintenance, Focused Improvement, Early Equipment Management, and Education & Training pillars.
Use RCA, 5 Why, Pareto, FMEA/FMECA, RCM, and loss analysis to address chronic equipment failures and improve OEE.
Translate plant business priorities into a measurable maintenance improvement plan and regular performance reviews.