Manager of Maintenance, Reliability & Engineering – North America

PEPL•Pittsburgh, PA

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Manager of Maintenance, Reliability & Engineering – North America is responsible for providing regional leadership, oversight, and accountability for maintenance, reliability, plant engineering, and related operational technology activities across North American manufacturing facilities. This role ensures that each plant’s maintenance and engineering supervisors, plant engineers, maintenance technicians, and assigned teams are effectively managing equipment reliability, minimizing downtime, supporting safe operations, and executing engineering projects that improve plant performance. This position is expected to establish clear standards, expectations, and accountability across all plants to ensure maintenance and engineering work is planned, completed, and accurately documented in the CMMS system, including uptime and downtime. The role partners closely with Plant Managers, Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering, Safety, Quality, Purchasing, IT/Operational Technology, and external contractors to support production needs, protect customer delivery commitments, and improve long-term plant reliability across North America.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Industrial Technology, Maintenance Management, or related field preferred; equivalent education and experience may be considered.
Minimum of 7–10 years of progressive maintenance, reliability, engineering, or plant operations experience in a manufacturing or industrial environment preferred.
Minimum of 5 years of supervisory, management, or multi-site leadership experience overseeing maintenance employees, technicians, plant engineers, skilled trades, supervisors, or other technical employees preferred.
Experience leading or providing functional oversight to maintenance teams in production environments with responsibility for equipment uptime, preventive maintenance, troubleshooting, and reliability improvement.
Experience managing or overseeing engineering projects, reliability projects, capital improvements, contractors, vendors, suppliers, equipment installations, commissioning, and validation activities.
Experience with preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, downtime reduction, condition-based monitoring, root cause analysis, and corrective action planning.
Strong knowledge of mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and industrial equipment systems.
Experience reviewing drawings, technical documentation, equipment specifications, as-built drawings, and engineering standards preferred.
Strong system, computer, data analysis, and reporting capabilities required.
CMMS experience required; experience with UpKeep or similar system preferred.
Experience reviewing and using SCADA information, equipment data, production data, dashboards, or other operational technology systems to support decisions preferred.
Experience coordinating maintenance work around production schedules, customer commitments, and planned downtime preferred.
Experience establishing standards, processes, and accountability across multiple departments or facilities preferred.
Strong understanding of workplace safety practices, lockout/tagout, hazard communication, PPE requirements, contractor safety, quality standards, ISO requirements, and regulatory compliance.
Strong leadership, accountability, and decision-making skills.
Strong people management and conflict resolution skills, including the ability to address performance concerns, resolve issues, and maintain accountability in a professional manner.
Ability to lead through others and hold plant-level leaders accountable for execution and results.
Ability to clearly communicate expectations, priorities, technical information, risks, and action plans to employees, plant leadership, regional leadership, contractors, vendors, and cross-functional teams.
Strong verbal communication skills, including the ability to speak clearly, directly, and professionally in both individual and group settings.
Positive, professional, and collaborative approach to supporting plants and regional business needs.
Ability to set clear priorities and drive completion of work across multiple facilities.
Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving ability.
Ability to apply engineering principles to complex equipment and reliability issues.
Excellent communication, follow-up, and documentation skills.
Strong planning, organization, resource planning, and project management skills.
Strong system, computer, data analysis, and reporting capabilities.
Ability to effectively use CMMS, SCADA, reliability metrics, operational data, dashboards, and other plant systems to support decisions.
Strong SCADA and operational data capabilities, including the ability to interpret equipment performance data, identify trends, and translate data into maintenance and reliability actions.
Data-driven approach to maintenance, reliability, asset lifecycle management, and continuous improvement.
Ability to manage multiple priorities across multiple locations while maintaining focus on safety, quality, production needs, and customer commitments.
Practical, hands-on approach with the ability to work effectively with hourly employees, plant leaders, and senior leadership.

Responsibilities

Provide leadership, direction, and oversight to plant-level maintenance and engineering supervisors to ensure maintenance teams are effectively managed at each facility.
Ensure each plant has clear daily maintenance priorities and that work is completed safely, efficiently, and on schedule.
Establish consistent expectations across all plants for work quality, urgency, communication, accountability, documentation, and follow-through.
Monitor maintenance activity, response times, equipment issues, downtime, and completion of assigned work across all facilities.
Ensure plant-level maintenance leaders are properly training, equipping, and holding their teams accountable for performance.
Provide technical and leadership guidance to plant maintenance supervisors, plant engineers, maintenance technicians, and other team members as needed.
Ensure each maintenance team supports the overall needs of its plant in a positive, professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented manner.
Develop, standardize, and oversee preventive, predictive, and reliability-based maintenance programs across North American facilities.
Ensure each plant is actively driving reliability improvements to reduce unplanned downtime, repeat failures, and production interruptions.
Ensure maintenance plans, schedules, and resource requirements are aligned with production needs at each facility.
Review equipment history, downtime trends, maintenance costs, SCADA data, and recurring issues across plants to identify root causes, reliability risks, corrective actions, and improvement opportunities.
Ensure plant teams conduct root cause analysis for equipment failures and implement sustainable countermeasures.
Support reliability-centered maintenance, condition-based monitoring, predictive maintenance, and asset lifecycle improvement initiatives across the region.
Ensure plant teams recommend and implement changes to equipment, processes, spare parts, or maintenance practices to improve safety, uptime, reliability, production efficiency, and operating performance.
Ensure preventive maintenance tasks are completed on time and properly documented at each plant.
Provide oversight and support for plant engineering, reliability, and capital projects across North America from concept through implementation.
Ensure plant teams develop appropriate project scopes, timelines, budgets, resource plans, technical requirements, and implementation plans.
Coordinate with plant leadership and internal and external resources, including contractors, vendors, suppliers, and regulatory parties, as needed.
Support equipment design reviews, layout planning, installation, commissioning, validation, and post-project follow-up across facilities.
Ensure equipment and spare parts specifications are properly defined and that procurement, installation, modifications, and upgrades are properly supported.
Ensure engineering projects meet safety, quality, regulatory, engineering, and company standards.
Monitor project progress, risks, technical deliverables, and performance metrics, and report status to leadership.
Ensure all engineering project work, equipment changes, downtime impacts, contractor work, and follow-up actions are documented appropriately in the CMMS system.
Provide regional technical oversight and support to help plants analyze and resolve complex equipment and reliability issues.
Ensure plant teams review drawings, perform technical calculations where required, and ensure equipment modifications meet engineering, safety, quality, and regulatory standards.
Ensure engineering documentation, equipment standards, as-built drawings, technical files, and equipment records are maintained consistently across plants.
Review and use reports on downtime trends, reliability metrics, corrective actions, project status, and equipment performance to support regional decision-making.
Prepare and deliver technical documentation, training materials, standards, and presentations to plant leadership and stakeholders as needed.
Serve as a regional technical liaison with suppliers, contractors, vendors, and internal teams.
Establish and enforce CMMS expectations across all North American plants for maintenance and engineering work.
Ensure plant teams accurately enter and maintain work orders, preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, project work, contractor work, labor time, parts usage, equipment history, and follow-up actions in the CMMS.
Ensure equipment uptime and downtime are documented accurately and consistently in the CMMS to support reporting, planning, reliability analysis, customer delivery planning, and capital decision-making.
Review CMMS compliance and open work orders across plants and ensure prioritization is based on safety, production impact, reliability, customer commitments, and urgency.
Use CMMS data to identify recurring issues, track plant and regional performance, support budgeting, and drive continuous improvement.
Hold plant-level maintenance leaders accountable for timely and accurate CMMS usage by their teams.
Oversee the use of SCADA information and other operational data across North American facilities, including equipment performance, uptime, downtime, cycle times, process conditions, and production reliability.
Ensure SCADA data is used to inform maintenance priorities, troubleshooting, preventive maintenance planning, reliability improvements, and engineering project decisions.
Partner with Operations, Engineering, and IT/Operational Technology to review data trends and identify opportunities to improve equipment performance, process stability, production efficiency, and product quality.
Support reporting, dashboards, and data tracking tools that improve visibility to plant and regional performance.
Ensure plant teams have strong system, computer, data, and SCADA capabilities and are using available information to support decisions.
Ensure each plant coordinates planned downtime, maintenance outages, equipment repairs, and project-related interruptions with Operations and Supply Chain.
Ensure downtime is planned to minimize disruption to production schedules, customer orders, and delivery commitments.
Require plant teams to review customer delivery risks with Supply Chain and Operations before scheduling significant maintenance work or engineering projects.
Ensure downtime requirements, timing, expected duration, risks, and recovery plans are communicated clearly to all affected departments.
Support contingency planning when equipment issues or unplanned downtime may affect order fulfillment or customer delivery dates.
Maintain and model a positive, professional, and collaborative attitude when working with employees, leaders, contractors, vendors, suppliers, and cross-functional teams.
Ensure plant maintenance and engineering teams actively support the overall needs of their facilities by helping remove barriers, resolve issues, and keep production running safely and effectively.
Partner with Plant Managers, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Safety, Purchasing, Engineering, Finance, and IT/Operational Technology in a solution-oriented manner to support plant and regional priorities.
Promote teamwork within maintenance departments and across all facilities.
Demonstrate urgency, accountability, and ownership when responding to equipment issues, project needs, production concerns, and customer delivery risks.
Support a culture where maintenance is viewed as a reliable partner to the plant, focused on safety, uptime, communication, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Collaborate with management to implement company policies and achieve operational objectives across North America.
Promote a strong safety culture across all maintenance and engineering teams.
Ensure maintenance work complies with company safety policies, lockout/tagout requirements, hazard communication requirements, PPE requirements, environmental requirements, engineering standards, internal quality standards, ISO requirements, and applicable regulations.
Ensure plant teams participate in safety audits, incident investigations, hazard assessments, and corrective action follow-up as required.
Ensure safety concerns are identified, escalated, and corrected.
Ensure contractors follow company safety requirements while working on site.
Support regulatory inspections, equipment compliance, and documentation requirements across North American facilities as needed.
Provide oversight and support for vendor, supplier, and contractor engagement related to maintenance, troubleshooting, project execution, and specialized repairs.
Ensure plants evaluate contractor and supplier performance, responsiveness, quality of work, and cost effectiveness.
Ensure contractor work is properly scoped, scheduled, supervised, and documented in the CMMS as appropriate.
Support purchasing activities related to maintenance parts, services, equipment, project materials, and spare parts specifications.
Ensure plants maintain appropriate critical spare parts, maintenance inventory, and equipment records.
Review parts, tools, materials, and resource needs across facilities to support maintenance and reliability.
Assist with regional maintenance budgets, repair spending, capital planning, and cost-control initiatives.
Recommend investments that improve safety, reliability, productivity, customer delivery performance, asset lifecycle management, or long-term cost performance.
Work closely with Plant Managers and Operations leaders to prioritize maintenance needs and minimize production disruption.
Ensure plant teams partner with Supply Chain to understand production schedules, order priorities, and customer delivery commitments when planning maintenance and engineering work.
Communicate equipment issues, project status, downtime risks, delivery impacts, reliability priorities, and maintenance priorities clearly to plant and regional leadership.
Provide regular updates on maintenance performance, project progress, reliability concerns, downtime trends, SCADA data insights, corrective actions, and action plans across North America.
Provide technical and operational support to manufacturing teams to minimize downtime and improve equipment performance.
Support plants during major breakdowns, shutdowns, off-shift needs, urgent plant issues, or emergency situations as required.
Perform other duties as assigned to support business and operational needs.