Plant Engineer

Job Overview:

Reporting to the Plant Manager, the Plant Engineer is responsible for achieving the highest level of reliability for plant equipment through committed support for the Sonoco Performance System (SPS), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), and strong ownership of the Maintenance Excellence process within their plant.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Champion the Maintenance Excellence (ME) process. Serve as the Maintenance Excellence Leader for the Plant SPS (TPM) Steering Team.

Work closely with SPS (TPM) Steering Team to effectively deploy the 8 sub-pillars of the Maintenance Excellence pillar. Support corporate SPS initiatives and partner with Divisional SPS Practitioners and Maintenance Excellence Leaders to effectively and efficiently progress through the SPS and ME continuums.

Provide leadership to ensure the highest standards of equipment performance are achieved and sustained. This involves establishing a sufficient numbers of highly-skilled, trained and qualified individuals; providing the tools, facilities, and environment needed for success; implementing sufficient controls; and providing appropriate oversight.

Works with Plant SPS (TPM) Steering Committee to achieve zero-losses by creating an environment where personnel are fully engaged, teamwork and cooperation is routinely practiced, and maintenance personnel embrace high standards for housekeeping, craftsmanship and equipment reliability.

Promote a culture in which production and maintenance work together to identify and resolve abnormal or degraded equipment conditions that could negatively impact safety, quality or productivity.

Support the “Zero-Loss” initiative; improve overall equipment effectiveness by targeting the major losses, involve operators in the maintenance of their equipment, improve maintenance efficiency and effectiveness, training to improve skills and knowledge and participating in early equipment management and maintenance prevention design.

Establish a process to identify equipment problems and equipment failures. Ensure personnel are adequately documenting equipment problems and that timely and appropriate permanent countermeasures are taken.

Implement a maintenance strategy for equipment important to safety, quality and productivity that effectively utilizes proactive (preventive and predictive) maintenance and performance monitoring to detect equipment degradation, and employ appropriate maintenance to prevent failure. This should be in line with the SPS strategy.

Ensure maintenance personnel performing work within the plant possess the appropriate skills and are qualified and proficient such that they can safely and effectively perform the work they are assigned. Take appropriate actions to close any identified training gaps.

Create a valuable partnership with local high schools, vocational and technical schools for future development and succession planning of skilled hourly associates.

Hold maintenance personnel accountable for adherence to established standards and management expectations. Reinforces favorable personnel behaviors and addresses performance shortfalls in a timely and professional manner.

Personally involved with the technical details of the action plans to correct important equipment problems. Frequently attend critical meetings on equipment performance to establish teamwork and accountability. Verify that corrective actions are timely and effective.

Overall responsibility for the Work Management process to include: identification, planning, scheduling, execution and closeout of maintenance related activities. Equipment problems are appropriately documented in work orders and work package content is sufficiently detailed such that the task can be successfully completed with the resources available.

Apply reliability tools (RCA and FMEA) to determine the root cause of critical equipment failures and downtime. Identify the appropriate countermeasures and solutions to improve equipment reliability and prevent recurrence.

Strong understanding of OSHA requirements related to equipment in-house. Ability to identify gaps and assist in developing/implementing countermeasures to achieve Zero Safety Incidents.

Proficient in Root Cause Analysis techniques (FMEA’s, 5Why’s, ATS, etc) and developing/implementing Countermeasures to drive Zero Breakdown culture.

Process-oriented. Can identify gaps in any process and develop/implement countermeasure to eliminate.

Basic mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, instrumentation, lubrication and predictive maintenance understanding (or ability to learn quickly)

Ability to manage costs and reduce/optimize where needed