PACKAGING MACHINE SPECIALIST

The South African Breweries; Akasia; On-site; ZAR 350,000 - 520,000; Full time

Job summary

The South African Breweries, located at a key FMCG site in South Africa, seeks a maintenance specialist to maintain, repair, and optimize plant equipment and devices. The role emphasizes minimizing costs without compromising standards, while coaching shift teams and ensuring high plant availability.

You will contribute to planned and routine maintenance, assist in problem solving, and participate in optimization trials to reduce downtime and improve process reliability.

Qualifications

• Must have FMCG maintenance experience.
• Strong PLC troubleshooting and wiring knowledge.
• Ability to plan and execute maintenance activities.
• Strong analytical thinking.
• Reliable transport.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist coaching and mentoring to shift teams.
• Support machine operation and fault diagnosis.
• Participate in regional plant optimization trials.
• Lead maintenance planning and scheduling.
• Execute planned and routine maintenance per schedule.

Skills

Problem solving

Teamwork

PLC knowledge

Troubleshooting

Technical communication

Education

N6 Electrical/Instrumentation

National Diploma in Electrical/Instrumentation Engineering

Electrical/Instrumentation/Mechatronics Trade Test

Tools

Siemens PLC

Allen-Bradley PLC

Industrial protocols

Job description

Dreaming big is in our DNA. It’s who we are as a company. It’s our culture. It’s our heritage. And more than ever, it’s our future. A future where we’re always looking forward. Always serving up new ways to meet life’s moments. A future where we keep dreaming bigger. We look for people with passion, talent, and curiosity, and provide them with the teammates, resources and opportunities to unleash their full potential. The power we create together – when we combine your strengths with ours – is unstoppable. Are you ready to join a team that dreams as big as you do?

Key Purpose

The role is to maintain, repair, and optimize plant and associated devices to ensure plant availability and product quality at minimum cost without sacrificing standards.

Key Roles and Responsibilities

Operational Support

• Provide specialist support for coaching, mentoring, and knowledge transfer of machine operation to shift-based teams
• This will include standby, day shift, and when requested after a time frame that standby will need expert advice or support
• Where requested, assist as a functional expert in problem-solving for the plant and support to zone
• Take part, as a functional expert, in regional and central office plant optimization trials
• Provide additional support to process artisan on machine operation, machine fault finding, and correct responses to machine failure modes
• Upskill process artisans with the latest SWI for machine setups or machine restorations
• Actively Participate in Line Clean and Tag exercise

Planned Maintenance

• Take part in maintenance planning meetings, scoping of the work and diligent execution
• Ensure backlog meets minimum hours and schedules are reviewed as per required frequency
• Carry out work during the planned maintenance window in accordance with the planned maintenance schedule issued by the planner
• Assist fellow team members in the execution of their tasks during planned maintenance windows
• Partake in maintenance postmortems to feedback problems, opportunities, and learnings from maintenance activities

Routine Maintenance

• Participating in ATO cleaning, lubrication, and inspection in accordance with the maintenance schedule issued by the Maintenance Planner must be resolved using the appropriate problem-solving techniques
• If carrying out routine maintenance activities in accordance with the maintenance schedule where problems have been uncovered during routine maintenance, these required, additional resources may be called to assist
• Where problems have been discovered, and it is required to include the work in the planned maintenance schedule, this must be communicated to the Maintenance Planner
• Carry out condition monitoring activities where these have been allocated to the Technician in accordance with the ZCM schedule

Key Attributes and Competencies

• Ability to solve problems on FMCG machines
• Ability to communicate technical knowledge to operation staff improving their skill sets
• Ability to train, coach, and mentor operation staff on ATO and 5’s principles
• Ability to optimize usage and reduce wastage with permanent solutions
• Interpersonal Skills
• Work in Teams and Collaborate
• Strong self-management practices
• Ability to solve problems using essential problem-solving tools (5 why; fishbone) and involved in high-level problem solving to identify root causes and loop closures AB Reports, SDCA, PDCA
• Ability to reduce machine downtime to a minimum while ensuring all problems have permanent solutions
• Ability to analyze various graphical data and open gaps to improve performance
• Ability to identify nonstandard work and tag the defects with root causes
• Ability to identify required spares for restoration tasks and communicate with suppliers for the best possible price thus showing savings on ZBB
• Ability to be able to use electronic communication devices e.g. Tablets, laptops, and other devices to help you understand the specific machines in more detail
• Ability to understand the robotic and sequencing system
• Always looking for opportunities to improve MTTB and shorten MTTR

Minimum Requirements

• N6 Electrical / Instrumentation
• Or National Diploma in Electrical/Instrumentation Engineering
• Electrical/Instrumentation/Mechatronics Trade Test Certificate
• Strong Knowledge of Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering
• Strong knowledge of PLC programming and Troubleshooting (Siemens and Allen-Bradley)
• Strong Knowledge of Industrial communication protocols (Ethernet IP, Device Net, Profinet, Profibus, ASI bus, CanBus etc.)
• Strong Analytical thinking
• 3 – 5 Years in FMCG environment
• Ability to do standby and after-hours support
• Have reliable transport

Additional Information

• Band: X

SAB is an equal opportunity employer, and all appointments will be made in line with SAB employment equity plan and talent requirements. The advert has minimum requirements listed. Management reserves the right to use additional/relevant information as criteria for short-listing.