Maintenance Manager - Food Production Facility

Kitchener, ON

We are a leading North American bakery company with a specialized focus across all key bakery categories, including bread and rolls, donuts, pies, cakes, alternative breads, and others. We bake our products in more than 30 bakeries across Canada and the USA, conducting our business with integrity, contributing to our communities, and fostering a respectful culture. We are building a culture of success here, and it depends on our people striving for greatness and having the courage and commitment to getting better every day.

As we forge ahead in the transformation of our business, we are coming together as a united North American enterprise, rebuilding our asset base, adding significant new capacity, and focusing on the development of our people. These building blocks are essential to moving forward as a growth-focused, insights-driven, consumer-led company that will celebrate food and the central part that food plays in our life.

The Maintenance Manager will be responsible for providing overall leadership and direction to the maintenance team in the everyday planning and execution of preventative maintenance and repair of all production equipment in Medium to Large bakeries. Direct reports may include Maintenance Supervisors and Maintenance planning personnel. This role will also provide direction to 3rd party contractors and work with corporate maintenance team to ensure needed support to bakery.

Core Accountabilities

Safety, Health and Environment

• Set a strong tone for compliance and drive accountability with company policies, procedures, and operational standards by setting clear expectations and communicating rationale for changes to teams. Drive a culture of 0 tolerance with LOTO and other lifesaving procedures;
• Liaise with Government agencies such as Technical Standards and Safety Authority, Ministry of the Environment and other regulatory bodies as required to ensure compliance;
• Develop and maintain a training plan for all employees and ensure it is advancing. Ensure required training is completed and documented into training records

Quality / Food Safety

• Ensure all maintenance aspects of equipment meet food safety standards. Adhere to our HACCP plan and SQF II requirements;

Production / Delivery

• Deliver an effective preventive maintenance plan. Ensure that maintenance planning and execution systems are in place to deliver required equipment availability and reliability. Ensure schedule is balanced for PM compliance. Liaise with OEM suppliers of equipment to resolve breakdown & maintenance issues;
• Provide technical leadership necessary to ensure both the department and facility meet or exceed targets;
• Ownership and management of spare parts;
• Ensure follow up on inventory record accuracy and data integrity issues;

Cost

• Provide input to annual maintenance budget & track results to ensure actions are taken to achieve targets;
• Optimize department spend in alignment with Corporate preferred supplier programs;
• Meet specific equipment reliability targets while operating

within budget. Provide further troubleshooting of issues and determine what external support is needed to fix issues;

Productivity

• Drive a continuous improvement culture by leading larger scope process improvements to achieve specific measurable goals. Use information tools to look for opportunities to improve line efficiency, trends, and drive bakery priorities;
• Conduct detailed root cause investigations for large deviations from target;
• Lead maintenance deliverables within the planning, assessment, installation and testing of new equipment, methods and/or products;
• Review investigations done by maintenance team of unplanned breakdowns, and investigate as to cause. Provide further troubleshooting of issues and determine what external support is needed to fix issues. Liaise with contractors to provide assistance as needed with maintenance beyond scope of in-house maintenance team;

People / Morale

• Establish and sustain a positive and cooperative employee environment through effective communications across work teams/shifts and other functional areas;
• Ensure consistency across shift teams in effective, timely and fair performance and disciplinary feedback and documentation;

Other Duties

• Assist as needed in interviewing and hiring of new employees. Conduct effective onboarding of new employees;
• Participate in the development of crewing strategies to respond to changes in demand including significant increases and decreases in volume. Work with HR to execute strategy;

As the Maintenance Manager, you will be responsible for creating a maintenance roadmap and delivery plan, along with coaching, training, and developing your staff in an effort build a best in class department. 

Primary responsibilities include, but aren't limited to:

• Providing leadership to maintenance lead persons and a staff of approximately 8 to 10 maintenance employees.
• Developing and prioritizing departmental work plans to ensure improved equipment reliability. Coordinate maintenance activities with production to maximize impact of available windows of opportunity.
• Provides knowledgeable guidance in CBM, PM Optimization, RCA and planning & scheduling.
• Define and monitor Maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs). 
• Create a MRO supply and inventory plan to ensure appropriate spare part availability while maximizing value of inventory.
• Develop a maintenance plan and budget based on historical data and defined optimization activities. Ensure that department runs within planned budgets.
• Ensuring safe working conditions for employees and compliance with all state and federal regulations on environmental, health and safety issues.
• Working closely with the Plant Manager on the development and design of new equipment, facilities and the modification of existing equipment and facilities to meet business needs.
• Developing and executing a Capital Improvement Plan.
• Assisting with the troubleshooting and repair of equipment when required.
• Instructing, training and assuring compliance of the plant's Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and other food safety standards within the maintenance department.
• Develop skill expectations for maintenance employees and create a training plan to meet those expectations.
• Coordinate with Production Manager to transfer minor maintenance tasks to operations personnel and elevate skills of that department.

Job Requirements

• 5-7 years maintenance management/supervisory experience in a food production facility
• Strong mechanical and electrical skills
• Familiarity with automated process/packaging technology an asset
• Experience working in a computerized preventative maintenance program an asset
• A demonstrated decision-maker with strong analytical and problem solving skills
• A demonstrated leader with excellent interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills who easily interacts with others and is adept to leading and motivating a team
• Working knowledge of MS Word, Excel, and e-mail an asset
• Conduct work with integrity, abiding and upholding the Code of Conduct and Company Core Values (Integrity, Commitment, Courage and Growth)
• Act, react and interact with respect and regard for others
• Ability to anticipate what needs to be done and commits to take ownership to ensure it gets done
• Demonstrated ability to multitask and work with urgency in a fast-paced environment
• Must be an effective communicator who inspires and motivates and creates an environment for open and trusting 2-way communication with all levels in the organization

If you’re excited about this opportunity and are a lover of bread, we invite you to apply!

We are committed to fostering a work environment with strong core values that support diversity through various policies, programs and activities that encourage sensitivity and accommodations.Our company offers employment regardless of race, colour, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation. Diversity is integral to our success as an organization and we will use diversity as a model to help identify and develop the best talent, create effective teams, and achieve overall excellence. In addition, we believe that compliance with laws is about doing the right thing. Upholding the law is part of our Code of Conduct – it reinforces what our customers and stakeholders expect of us.