Maintenance Planner / Reliability Engineer – Pet Food (NZ)

About the role

We are looking for a Maintenance Planner and Reliability Engineer to join our pet‑food manufacturing site in Te Puke, New Zealand. The role will own the planning and scheduling of maintenance work while driving reliability improvements to minimise unplanned downtime.

Key responsibilities

• Build and issue weekly and daily maintenance schedules aligned with production, sanitation windows and shutdowns.
• Convert maintenance requests into complete work orders with scope, labour, parts, tools, permits/LOTO and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate access windows with Operations to protect production continuity and track schedule attainment.
• Lead reliability cadence: identify top losses, conduct root‑cause analysis and implement corrective actions.
• Optimise preventive‑maintenance strategies using failure history, OEM guidance and risk‑based thinking.
• Maintain CMMS (Limble) data quality and enforce workflow discipline from request to close.
• Provide reliability input to shutdown planning, CAPEX discussions and asset criticality ranking.

Required profile

• Proven experience in maintenance planning and reliability engineering within an industrial or food‑production environment.
• Strong analytical mindset with ability to use data to drive continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication and coordination skills to work with Operations, QA and engineering teams.
• Attention to safety procedures, including LOTO and hygiene controls.

Required skills

• CMMS – Limble
• Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
• Preventive Maintenance Planning
• Reliability Engineering methodologies
• Shutdown and CAPEX planning
• Asset criticality ranking