Maintenance & Automation Technician

Zina's Fine Foods•South Plainfield, NJ

5d•$80,000 - $95,000•Onsite

About The Position

Zina's Fine Foods makes refrigerated ready-to-eat meals, salads and side dishes at our South Plainfield plant. We are SQF certified and we are expanding into more space and more lines, which means more equipment to install, improve and keep running. We are looking for a technician who is happiest with tools in hand and a panel open. You will keep production running day to day, and you will help bring new equipment online. Some of our machines arrive secondhand. No manual, no drawings, no vendor to call. Working out how a machine is meant to run, setting it correctly and getting it into production is a real part of this job, and it is the part we value most. First shift, on site, roughly 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM.

Requirements

Several years maintaining production equipment in a plant. Food, beverage or another wet manufacturing environment is a strong plus
Real mechanical ability: bearings, drives, belts, chains, gearboxes, pneumatics, hydraulics
Electrical troubleshooting through 480V three phase
Ability to work with PLCs and VFDs, Allen-Bradley or Siemens
Comfortable working from the machine and a meter when there is no documentation
Able to work on your own when a line goes down

Nice To Haves

Experience commissioning, rebuilding or retrofitting used equipment
Panel building or machine building experience
Electrical license or certification
Spanish
SQF, HACCP or GMP experience
A degree or trade qualification in mechatronics, electrical or mechanical

Responsibilities

Troubleshoot and repair production equipment: mechanical, electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic
Set up, level, align and time machines so they run right, not just run
Install and commission new and used equipment, from uncrating through the first production run
Work on fillers, depositors, labelers, checkweighers, metal detectors, cookers, coolers, conveyors, weighers and wrappers
Read and correct electrical schematics, and wire or modify control panels
Troubleshoot PLC-controlled equipment and VFDs, and make program changes where needed
Find the real cause when a machine keeps failing, fix it, and confirm it stayed fixed
Show operators how to run and set the equipment, and write down what you did so the knowledge does not live only in your head
Work safely in a wet, cold, washdown environment under GMP and SQF rules