Head of Maintenance
Head of Maintenance
Location: California
Industry: Food Manufacturing
About the Opportunity
A leading food manufacturing organization is seeking a seasoned maintenance and reliability executive to oversee maintenance operations across a multi-site manufacturing network. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for driving equipment reliability, operational performance, asset optimization, and continuous improvement initiatives across several production facilities.
The successful candidate will serve as a key partner to Operations, Engineering, Safety, Quality, and Supply Chain leadership, ensuring manufacturing assets operate safely, efficiently, and reliably while supporting long-term business growth.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and lead enterprise-wide maintenance and reliability strategies across multiple manufacturing facilities.
- Drive improvements in equipment uptime, asset utilization, operational efficiency, and overall plant performance.
- Establish best-in-class maintenance practices, leveraging preventive, predictive, and condition-based maintenance methodologies.
- Lead reliability initiatives focused on reducing downtime, increasing throughput, and extending asset life.
- Oversee maintenance planning, scheduling, workforce development, and execution across a geographically dispersed operation.
- Manage annual operating and capital budgets while identifying opportunities to improve cost efficiency and return on investment.
- Partner closely with plant leadership teams to prioritize maintenance resources and support production goals.
- Sponsor major capital improvement and modernization projects designed to improve reliability and operational capability.
- Utilize data, analytics, and maintenance technologies to improve decision-making and drive measurable business results.
- Promote a culture centered on safety, accountability, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.
What We're Looking For
- Proven maintenance and reliability leadership experience within food, beverage, protein, or other complex manufacturing environments.
- Multi-site leadership experience supporting large-scale production operations.
- Strong understanding of maintenance planning, asset management, reliability engineering, and continuous improvement principles.
- Demonstrated success improving uptime, reducing downtime, and optimizing maintenance performance.
- Experience leading large teams through change, growth, and operational transformation.
- Strong financial acumen with experience managing maintenance budgets, capital projects, and cost-reduction initiatives.
- Ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders and build strong partnerships across operations and corporate functions.
- Hands-on leader who can balance strategic planning with operational execution.
FAQs
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