Position Summary
The Facilities & Engineering Manager is a key member of the plant leadership team responsible for the long-term reliability, performance, and sustainability of the facility’s manufacturing assets, infrastructure, and engineering systems. This position provides strategic leadership for maintenance, engineering, capital improvements, and facility operations while partnering across all plant functions to achieve world-class safety, quality, service, and operational performance.
The Facilities & Engineering Manager develops and executes engineering strategies that maximize equipment reliability, improve manufacturing efficiency, reduce operational risk, and support future business growth. The role is responsible for building organizational capability through leadership, coaching, and development of the maintenance organization while fostering a culture centered on safety, accountability, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.
As a member of the plant leadership team, this position partners closely with Production, Quality, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Safety, Sanitation, Human Resources, and Finance to improve overall site performance. The successful candidate will develop both the technical expertise and operational leadership capabilities necessary to support increasing levels of plant leadership responsibility.
Plant Leadership
- Serve as a member of the plant leadership team, helping establish site priorities, strategic objectives, and operational direction.
- Partner with department leaders to improve overall plant performance in Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, and People Development.
- Participate in development of annual operating plans, capital budgets, productivity initiatives, and long-range business strategy.
- Support organizational initiatives that strengthen employee engagement, leadership development, and operational excellence.
- Lead by example while promoting a culture of accountability, collaboration, integrity, and continuous improvement.
Engineering & Reliability Leadership
- Own the engineering strategy for all manufacturing equipment, utilities, and facility infrastructure.
- Develop long-term asset management strategies that maximize reliability and lifecycle performance.
- Establish engineering standards that improve equipment availability while reducing total cost of ownership.
- Lead reliability initiatives that improve OEE, reduce downtime, and increase manufacturing capacity.
- Develop capital investment plans that support current and future production requirements.
Maintenance Leadership
- Provide leadership and direction to the Facilities Engineer, Maintenance Manager and maintenance organization.
- Develop technical capabilities through coaching, mentoring, succession planning, and structured employee development.
- Establish performance expectations and accountability throughout the maintenance organization.
- Foster a proactive maintenance culture focused on prevention rather than reaction.
- Build a high-performing maintenance team capable of supporting future business growth.
Continuous Improvement
- Champion Lean Manufacturing principles throughout the organization.
- Lead plant-wide continuous improvement initiatives utilizing PDCA, Root Cause Analysis, TPM, 5 Whys, Value Stream Mapping, and other improvement methodologies.
- Develop sustainable systems that improve equipment reliability, labor utilization, maintenance effectiveness, and operational performance.
- Standardize engineering practices, maintenance procedures, and reliability processes.
- Ensure improvements are sustained through training, auditing, and leader standard work.
Cross-Functional Operational Leadership
- Partner closely with Production, Quality, Safety, Warehouse, Planning, Engineering, Finance, and Human Resources to improve plant performance.
- Collaborate with operations leadership to remove manufacturing constraints and improve throughput.
- Support scheduling, capacity planning, labor optimization, and capital planning activities.
- Build collaborative relationships that improve communication and decision-making across departments.
- Balance engineering priorities with customer needs and operational objectives.
Safety, Quality & Culture
- Champion a culture where employee safety, food safety, product quality, and operational excellence are non-negotiable.
- Lead by example while reinforcing safe work practices and regulatory compliance.
- Develop employees through coaching, training, performance feedback, and leadership development.
- Foster an environment that encourages innovation, teamwork, accountability, and employee engagement.
- Promote ownership at every level of the organization.
Capital Projects
- Lead engineering support for capital projects from concept through commissioning.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend equipment improvements.
- Ensure projects are completed safely, on schedule, within budget, and deliver expected business results.
- Manage engineering documentation and project records.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Engineering Management, or related engineering discipline.
- Minimum seven years of progressively responsible engineering or manufacturing leadership experience.
- Minimum three years leading technical teams within a manufacturing environment.
- Strong knowledge of industrial manufacturing systems, facility infrastructure, utilities, and reliability engineering.
- Demonstrated experience improving equipment reliability and operational performance.
- Excellent leadership, communication, and organizational skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Engineering Management, Business Administration (MBA), or related discipline preferred.
- Professional Engineer (PE), Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP), Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt, Project Management Professional (PMP), or equivalent certification preferred.
- Experience within food manufacturing, pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods, or other regulated manufacturing environments.
- Experience leading capital expansion projects and facility modernization initiatives.
- Experience developing future leaders and building high-performing technical organizations.
- Demonstrated success leading cross-functional operational improvement initiatives.
Leadership Competencies
The successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to:
- Build and develop high-performing teams.
- Inspire trust through integrity, accountability, and transparent communication.
- Develop future leaders through coaching and mentorship.
- Lead organizational change while maintaining employee engagement.
- Think strategically while executing operationally.
- Build strong partnerships across all levels of the organization.
- Make sound business decisions using financial, operational, and engineering data.
- Foster a culture centered on safety, quality, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.