Reliability Manager

Kaneka North America•Pasadena, TX

17h•$134,100 - $201,100

About The Position

The Reliability Manager leads the Reliability and Inspection function, including the Maintenance Engineering and Inspection team. The role owns execution, performance, communication, recovery planning, and results for the function, operating within approved budgets, policies, standards, and delegated authority. It recommends site-level reliability strategies, capital priorities, standards, and resource needs to the Senior Director of Engineering & Maintenance, and escalates matters involving significant risk acceptance, major resource tradeoffs, site-wide governance, or executive alignment. The role does not own the complete site capital portfolio, the Maintenance organization, the Capital Projects organization, Process Control, or site-wide Engineering and Maintenance governance. The position designs and sustains plant asset-reliability and asset-management programs, optimizes preventive and predictive maintenance, and owns the Mechanical Integrity program. It leads failure analysis and continuous improvement, manages department budgets and performance, develops reliability-related capital recommendations, and provides technical leadership for projects, outages, troubleshooting, commissioning, and operational readiness. It also develops team capability and builds alignment with internal and external stakeholders. The role is expected to demonstrate emotional empathy, a positive attitude, excellent communication, flexibility and adaptability, and interpersonal skills. Expected results include commitment to safety and compliance; measurable improvements in equipment reliability, asset integrity, and unplanned downtime; effective asset strategies and investment recommendations; reliable execution of approved plans and budgets; development of team members and bench strength; accurate stakeholder communication; and positive cross-department collaboration.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and develop the Maintenance Engineering and Inspection team, setting accountability for safety, compliance, technical quality, execution, communication, and results.
Set objectives, assess performance, provide timely feedback, and foster ownership, reliability, ethical conduct, and continuous improvement.
Develop technical and leadership capability through coaching, challenging assignments, professional development, competency expectations, and documented development plans.
Identify critical skills, capability gaps, succession risks, and future staffing needs; build bench strength for key technical and leadership positions.
Design, implement, and sustain a comprehensive reliability and asset-management program for plant assets.
Translate site business objectives, operating risks, and production requirements into reliability and asset-management priorities.
Develop and maintain long-range asset strategies addressing condition, lifecycle risk, obsolescence, maintainability, renewal requirements, and operational continuity.
Establish and monitor reliability KPIs for equipment availability, performance, cost, and risk reduction.
Eliminate chronic equipment issues, reduce structural maintenance cost, improve lifecycle value, and translate emerging risks into plans and recommendations.
Drive appropriate adoption of digital technologies, analytics, automation, and emerging tools that improve asset management and engineering effectiveness.
Oversee development, optimization, and execution of preventive and predictive maintenance plans.
Implement condition monitoring, including vibration analysis, thermography, and oil analysis, and ensure timely corrective actions.
Use equipment criticality, failure history, risk, and performance data to optimize maintenance strategies and task intervals.
Maintain a critical spare-parts strategy supporting reliability, business continuity, and responsible inventory investment.
Own and manage the Mechanical Integrity program in compliance with Process Safety Management requirements, applicable regulations, RAGAGEPs, and company standards.
Supervise nondestructive inspection programs and validate plant inspection and testing procedures.
Ensure inspection databases, records, recommendations, and documentation are accurate, complete, current, and effectively managed.
Communicate significant asset-integrity risks, compliance concerns, overdue actions, and recovery plans to appropriate leadership.
Lead root cause failure analysis for significant equipment and system failures and ensure corrective actions are implemented and verified.
Collaborate with vendors, operating units, and subject-matter experts to identify failure modes and prevent recurrence.
Recommend and implement improvements to equipment specifications, repair procedures, engineering standards, maintenance strategies, and workforce capability.
Capture lessons learned and incorporate them into asset strategies, project scopes, design practices, and maintenance programs.
Develop and manage the Reliability and Inspection department budget, including forecasting, cost control, contractor requirements, and recovery planning.
Develop recommendations using lifecycle cost, asset risk, equipment criticality, operational impact, compliance requirements, and available resources.
Prepare cost-benefit analyses and business cases for major repairs, renewals, reliability improvements, inspection initiatives, and technology investments.
Monitor performance and spending against approved plans; communicate material risks, deviations, options, recommendations, and recovery actions.
Partner with Maintenance, Production, Finance, Supply Chain, and Capital Projects to improve asset-investment and maintenance-cost decisions.
Identify equipment-renewal, mechanical-integrity, and reliability-improvement opportunities for annual and multi-year capital plans.
Prepare and sponsor business cases describing asset risk, reliability impact, lifecycle cost, production impact, compliance considerations, alternatives, and recommendations.
Support capital portfolio prioritization with equipment-condition, risk, failure-history, criticality, and operational-impact information.
Serve as the reliability and asset-management subject-matter expert during project development, design, execution, commissioning, startup, and post-project review.
Review equipment specifications and proposed modifications for reliability, maintainability, inspection accessibility, lifecycle cost, technical risk, and compliance with engineering standards.
Incorporate lessons from failures, maintenance history, and operating experience into project scopes and design standards.
Provide technical leadership to maintenance planners, supervisors, technicians, engineers, and operating units for troubleshooting and job-plan development.
Review and approve repair strategies within assigned authority, ensuring compliance with RAGAGEPs, quality requirements, and company standards.
Support outage and turnaround scope development using asset condition, criticality, inspection findings, and reliability risk.
Participate in pre-startup safety reviews, commissioning, startup, performance testing, and punch-list resolution.
Provide technical support during emergencies or critical equipment failures as needed.
Build trust and alignment across Production, Maintenance, Capital Projects, Process Control, HSSE, Finance, Supply Chain, corporate functions, and external technical organizations.
Present technical, risk, financial, and business matters clearly to frontline personnel, technical staff, managers, site leadership, and corporate stakeholders.
Resolve departmental conflicts and elevate cross-functional system issues with facts, options, recommendations, and business impact.
Maintain relationships with Kaneka Corporate and global Kaneka facilities, and support KGES initiatives to improve consistency and excellence across sites.
Lead sustainable change by defining the need, engaging stakeholders, establishing accountability, measuring outcomes, and adjusting implementation based on evidence.
Own execution, performance, communication, recovery planning, and results for the Reliability and Inspection function; recommend strategies, capital priorities, standards, and resource needs to the Senior Director of Engineering & Maintenance.
Operate within approved budgets, policies, standards, and delegated authority, escalating significant risk acceptance, major resource tradeoffs, site-wide governance, or executive-alignment matters.