Director of Maintenance

CareersInFood.com; Skokie (IL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

CareersInFood.com is seeking a Maintenance Director to lead a high-volume food manufacturing maintenance organization. In a 500+ employee site, you will drive equipment reliability, safety, regulatory compliance, and cost efficiency while shaping the maintenance strategy and culture.

This role requires a proven leader in food manufacturing who can develop leaders, set clear expectations, and influence across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic and operational management for the Maintenance organization, establishing accountability and continuous improvement.
• Set clear expectations for maintenance leaders and teams and track performance against KPIs such as reliability, downtime, PM compliance, and safety.
• Develop and retain a strong leadership team capable of managing day-to-day work and building long-term capability.
• Establish a proactive, data-driven maintenance culture and align maintenance with operational and business objectives.
• Collaborate with Operations, Quality, Safety, Engineering, and Finance to improve plant performance and asset strategy.

Job description

The Maintenance Director is a pivotal leadership position responsible for driving the performance, reliability, and transformation of the maintenance organization within a high-volume food manufacturing environment. This leader will oversee the maintenance strategy for a complex operation with 500+ employees, ensuring equipment reliability, facility readiness, safety, regulatory compliance, cost effectiveness, and operational continuity.

This position requires a high-accountability, high-influence leader who can establish clear expectations, develop leaders, and drive results within the Maintenance organization while building strong partnerships and influencing decisions across the broader organization.

The successful candidate will bring significant leadership experience within food manufacturing and a proven history of leading maintenance organizations through growth, transformation, operational change, and continuous improvement.

This is not simply a role focused on keeping equipment running. The Maintenance Director will help shape the future of the operation by building a proactive, data-driven, highly accountable maintenance culture that supports the organization's strategic objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Organizational Accountability

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for the Maintenance organization, establishing a culture of accountability, ownership, urgency, and continuous improvement.
• Set clear expectations for maintenance leaders and team members while holding the organization accountable for performance, execution, and results.
• Lead, coach, develop, and retain a strong maintenance leadership team capable of effectively managing day-to-day operations while building long-term capability.
• Establish performance expectations and meaningful KPIs for maintenance leadership and teams, including equipment reliability, downtime, PM compliance, work order completion, response time, backlog, cost, and safety.
• Address performance issues directly and consistently while maintaining a culture of respect, transparency, and development.
• Build organizational capability through succession planning, talent development, technical training, and leadership development.
• Create an environment where Maintenance is viewed as a strategic business partner rather than solely a reactive service function.

Cross-Functional Influence

• Build strong, collaborative relationships with Operations, Quality, Safety, Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, HR, and other functional leaders.
• Influence without relying solely on positional authority, creating alignment around maintenance priorities and organizational objectives.
• Partner closely with Operations leadership to improve equipment reliability, production efficiency, line performance, and overall plant productivity.
• Challenge the organization appropriately when maintenance, reliability, safety, or operational risks require attention.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to the site leadership team regarding equipment reliability, capital needs, facility requirements, risk, and long-term asset strategy.
• Translate technical maintenance issues into clear business implications and recommendations for senior leadership.
• Establish credibility across all levels of the organization and effectively communicate with hourly employees, front-line leaders, peers, and executive leadership.

Maintenance Strategy & Reliability

• Develop and execute a comprehensive maintenance and reliability strategy aligned with business growth and operational objectives.
• Drive the organization from a reactive maintenance culture toward proactive and predictive maintenance practices.
• Establish and continuously improve preventive and predictive maintenance programs.
• Improve equipment uptime, reliability, asset utilization, and overall equipment effectiveness.
• Analyze downtime, recurring failures, work orders, maintenance trends, and equipment performance to identify systemic opportunities.
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective action efforts for chronic equipment and process failures.
• Develop asset management strategies that prioritize critical equipment and minimize operational risk.
• Ensure maintenance systems, processes, documentation, and standards are consistently executed across the organization.
• Lead Maintenance through a period of significant organizational transformation and growth.
• Challenge existing processes and ways of working while creating sustainable solutions rather than temporary fixes.
• Identify opportunities to improve maintenance structure, processes, technology, staffing, workflows, and organizational capability.
• Champion Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, reliability-centered maintenance, root-cause analysis, and other continuous improvement methodologies.
• Establish a culture where teams proactively identify problems, solve root causes, and continuously improve performance.
• Lead change effectively by clearly communicating the why, what, and expected outcome of organizational and operational changes.
• Build buy-in among leaders and employees while maintaining momentum and accountability throughout transformation initiatives.

Safety, Quality & Food Manufacturing Compliance

• Ensure maintenance activities are executed in accordance with all applicable food safety, regulatory, environmental, and workplace safety requirements.
• Partner with Quality and Food Safety leadership to maintain equipment and facility standards necessary to protect product safety and quality.
• Ensure maintenance teams follow appropriate lockout/tagout, electrical safety, machine guarding, confined space, and other applicable safety practices.
• Support compliance with applicable FDA, USDA, SQF, and other customer or regulatory requirements as applicable to the facility.
• Maintain a strong focus on employee safety and proactively address maintenance-related risks.
• Ensure documentation, records, inspections, and maintenance programs support audit readiness.

Capital Projects & Asset Investment

• Partner with Engineering, Operations, Finance, and senior leadership to identify and prioritize capital investments.
• Develop business cases and recommendations for equipment replacement, facility improvements, automation, and reliability investments.
• Provide maintenance leadership for capital projects, ensuring maintainability, reliability, safety, and lifecycle considerations are incorporated into project decisions.
• Evaluate the long-term return, risk, and operational impact of capital investments.
• Help establish a long-term asset strategy that supports organizational growth.

Budget & Cost Management

• Develop and manage the Maintenance department budget while balancing reliability, operational requirements, and cost discipline.
• Monitor labor, overtime, parts, contractor, and other maintenance-related expenditures.
• Identify opportunities to reduce maintenance costs without compromising safety, quality, reliability, or production performance.
• Establish appropriate controls for spare parts, inventory, contractors, and external service providers.
• Use data and business analysis to make informed resource and investment decisions.

The Maintenance Director is expected to:

• Lead with accountability.
• Influence with authority within the Maintenance organization.
• Influence without authority across the broader organization.
• Make decisions with both urgency and sound business judgment.
• Hold leaders accountable while developing their capability.
• Build trust without avoiding difficult conversations.
• Challenge the status quo when it does not support the organization's goals.
• Create alignment rather than operating in functional silos.
• Communicate clearly and effectively from the production floor to the executive leadership team.
• Be visible, engaged, and accessible to employees and leaders.
• Balance short-term operational needs with long-term organizational strategy.
• Lead change with resilience, consistency, and transparency.