Director of Engineering

The Kraft Group; Worcester (MA); On-site; USD 212,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus eligible

Job summary

The Kraft Group seeks a Director of Engineering to lead engineering, maintenance, facilities and reliability across multiple corrugated plants. This executive role develops a unified maintenance and asset-reliability strategy, aligning resources and standardizing practices with plant leadership to maximize uptime, safety, productivity and cost efficiency.

This position partners with the VP of Operations and C-Suite to drive capital planning, KPI reporting, RCAs, and continuous improvement across

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related field required.
• 12+ years of progressive engineering and maintenance leadership experience in manufacturing.
• Experience in corrugated packaging or related high-volume manufacturing.
• Strong knowledge of reliability-centered maintenance, TPM, predictive maintenance, CMMS, and asset management.
• Experience leading multi-site engineering or maintenance organizations.
• Knowledge of capital project management and equipment lifecycle planning.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute an annual enterprise-wide engineering, maintenance, and reliability strategy.
• Develop and manage an annual maintenance and engineering budget with ROI focus.
• Standardize preventive, predictive, and reliability maintenance programs across facilities.
• Act as a key member of Operations leadership to advise on maintenance and engineering.
• Coordinate engineering resources to complete enterprise initiatives on schedule and budget.
• Establish, monitor, and report monthly KPIs for uptime, costs, MTBF/MTTR, backlog.
• Provide executive oversight of RCAs and implement corrective actions to reduce recurrence.
• Partner with Operations to improve equipment performance, safety, and quality.
• Oversee capital planning for equipment modernization and major projects.
• Champion continuous improvement and standardization across maintenance and reliability.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Maintenance leadership

Corrugated packaging

Reliability-centered maintenance

CMMS

Capital project management

Cross-functional collaboration

Strategic planning

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering

Master's degree preferred

Tools

CMMS

Job description

Job Location: Rand Whitney Container Agrand MA - Worcester, MA 01607

Position Type: Full Time

Education Level: Bachelor's Degree

Salary Range: $212,000.00 - $250,000.00 Salary

Job Shift: First Shift

Job Category: General and Administration

Bonus Eligible: Yes

SUMMARY

The Director of Engineering provides strategic leadership for engineering, maintenance, facilities, and reliability initiatives across multiple corrugated manufacturing plants. This position develops a unified maintenance and asset reliability strategy, aligns engineering resources across facilities, and ensures maintenance efforts are coordinated to maximize equipment availability, safety, productivity, and cost effectiveness. The role partners closely with plant leadership to standardize best practices, prioritize capital improvements, and drive continuous improvement across the enterprise.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develop and execute an annual enterprise-wide engineering, maintenance, and reliability strategy with defined targets for uptime, maintenance cost, planned maintenance compliance, safety, and capital project execution.
• Develop, manage, and meet an annual maintenance and engineering budget to include capital investment, maintenance and repair vendors, asset replacement, and internal labor cost. This will be measured in part through overall effect on revenue, EBITA, and year-over-year ROI on the business
• Standardize preventive, predictive, and reliability-centered maintenance programs across all facilities, including common preventative maintenance compliance targets, inspection standards, and CMMS reporting requirements.
• Act as a key member of the Operations leadership team providing counsel to the VP of Operations and C-Suite leaders on all aspects of maintenance, reliability, and engineering
• Coordinate engineering resources and maintenance priorities to complete approved enterprise initiatives on schedule, within budget, and according to defined operational requirements.
• Establish, monitor, and report monthly KPIs for equipment uptime, maintenance costs, PM compliance, asset reliability, MTBF, MTTR, and maintenance backlog to drive continuous improvement.
• Provide executive oversight of enterprise root cause analyses (RCAs) for significant equipment failures and implement sustainable corrective actions ensuring corrective actions are implemented, validated, and recurrence rates are reduced through documented follow-up.
• Partner with Operations to improve equipment performance, throughput, safety, and product quality using agreed-upon metrics such as downtime, OEE, scrap, safety incidents, and customer quality defects
• Oversee enterprise-wide capital planning for equipment modernization and engineering support for major projects, including capital roadmap from business case through design, vendor selection, installation, commissioning, startup, and post-project performance
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement across all engineering and maintenance functions by standardizing maintenance planning, CMMS governance, reliability processes, and performance management practices. Utilize enterprise maintenance and reliability metrics to identify opportunities, eliminate inefficiencies, reduce reactive maintenance, improve asset performance, and drive operational excellence across all manufacturing facilities.
• Ensure compliance with applicable safety, environmental, and engineering standards, measured by audit results, corrective-action closure rates, regulatory findings, incident trends, and timely resolution of identified deficiencies.
• Build organizational capability, measured by completion of annual succession plans, leadership development goals, technical training completion rates, bench‑strength assessments, retention of key roles, and improvement against workforce capability gaps.
• Special projects and assignments as business dictates
• Responsible for the maintenance, creation and control of all personally identifiable information or any other information protected by any Confidentiality or Privacy Standards or Company Policies that you have access or knowledge of, including but not limited to any state or federal regulations including HIPAA

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Director of Facilities and Maintenance
• Assistant Maintenance Manager
• Maintenance Manager

SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related technical field required. Masters degree in a related field preferred.
• 12+ years of progressive engineering and maintenance leadership experience in manufacturing required.
• Experience in corrugated packaging or related high-volume manufacturing required.
• Strong knowledge of reliability-centered maintenance, TPM, predictive maintenance, CMMS, and asset management required.
• Experience leading multi-site engineering or maintenance organizations required.
• Knowledge of capital project management and equipment lifecycle planning.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Must have attention to detail and focused concentration.
• Must be able to learn new tasks and complete tasks independently.
• Must be able to make timely decisions in the context of the workflow.
• Must possess strong organizational skills, ability to multi-task and responsiveness.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Regularly required to stand, walk, climb, kneel, crouch, and crawl during plant visits.
• Occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.
• Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Frequent travel between multiple corrugated manufacturing facilities.
• Regular exposure to manufacturing environments with moving mechanical equipment, noise, dust, and varying temperatures.
• Hearing protection required in production areas.

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS

• Professional Engineer (PE) license preferred.
• Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) preferred.
• Lean Six Sigma certification preferred.

OTHER DUTIES

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

This company is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics.