The Manufacturing Equipment Project Manager / Maintenance Engineer provides technical and project leadership across manufacturing equipment, facilities, and infrastructure. This role blends hands on engineering expertise with full cycle project management to strengthen equipment reliability, improve production efficiency, and enhance plant safety, quality, and performance.
The position leads capital projects, equipment installations, process improvements, facility upgrades, and reliability initiatives from initial concept and budgeting through engineering, procurement, installation, commissioning, and closeout. It also supports equipment lifecycle planning, advanced troubleshooting, technical standards development, and continuous improvement efforts.
Working closely with Maintenance, Operations, Engineering, Production, Quality, Safety, Finance, and external contractors, the role ensures all projects and technical activities are executed safely, on schedule, within budget, and in compliance with company and regulatory requirements.
- Develop and support strategies to improve equipment reliability, availability, and maintainability; evaluate equipment condition and recommend repairs, replacements, or upgrades; assist with lifecycle planning and ensure equipment designs meet safety, accessibility, and maintainability requirements.
- Create and review technical standards for mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and control systems; review drawings, schematics, P&IDs, and technical documentation for accuracy and compliance.
- Provide advanced troubleshooting and engineering support to maintenance teams, resolve vendor design and performance issues, and respond to critical equipment failures.
- Lead capital projects from concept through commissioning, including defining scopes, schedules, budgets, execution plans, capital requests, cost estimates, and ROI analyses.
- Coordinate specifications, vendor selection, procurement, contractor management, installation, construction, electrical work, controls integration, and commissioning activities.
- Maintain project schedules and milestones, monitor spending, manage risks, conduct status meetings, ensure on time and on budget delivery, and maintain all project documentation and closeout records.
- Design and implement equipment upgrades, eliminate production bottlenecks with Operations, support automation and robotics initiatives, evaluate new technologies, and validate equipment performance through commissioning and FAT/SAT activities.
- Partner with maintenance leadership to establish reliability priorities, support long term asset planning, identify cost saving opportunities, assist with budgeting, analyze labor and spare parts costs, and develop critical spare parts strategies and equipment criticality rankings.
- Ensure all work complies with OSHA, NFPA, environmental, and company standards; integrate guarding, ergonomics, and electrical safety into designs; participate in MOC, risk assessments, PHA/HAZOP, and pre startup reviews; enforce contractor safety and support LOTO and safe installation practices.
- Other Duties as required.
Skills and Abilities
- Collaboration: Works independently. Demonstrates teamwork and collaboration.
- Communication: Collaborate clearly with operators, helpers, and team members to ensure smooth production flow in person and via email.
- Team Leadership: Proven ability to build, motivate, and develop high performance maintenance teams.
- Project management: Ability to handle multiple tasks with changing priorities.
- Engineering Expertise: In depth knowledge of electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, and other relevant engineering disciplines.
- Quality control: Possess a keen eye for detail
- Risk Management: Understanding of potential maintenance risks and ability to implement mitigation strategies.
- Physical abilities: Meet the physical demands of the role, including static pull strength of 84 lbs., push 60 lbs., lift 50 lbs. Mount/dismount a sit down forklift.
- Technical skills: Possess basic computer skills to operate production related software and maintain digital records.
- Compliance: Understanding and adherence to GMP regulations and procedures.
- Systems Proficiency: Ability to utilize CMMS systems (e.g., EMaint) for work order management and maintenance planning.
- Continuous improvement: Maintain a process optimization