Reliability Engineer

• Department:
  Operations

At
Link Snacks
, we show up hungry, roll up our sleeves, plaid or otherwise, and dive straight into the hard work. We don’t hide from challenges; we hunt them down. We push harder, move faster, and take the kinds of big swings that built this business in the North Woods of Wisconsin four decades ago.

We’re everyday people who deliver extraordinary results. Innovation, creativity, and urgency aren’t buzzwords, they’re expectations. And just like the real protein snacks we make across our global house of brands:

Jack Link’s® , Lorissa’s™ Organic Snacks , Golden Island® , BiFi® , Peperami® and KOOEE!® to name a few, there’s nothing artificial about us. What you see is exactly what you get: humble, gritty, passionate people who show up every day ready to not just be a participate in the meat snack industry that the Link Family created, but to move faster, innovate harder and keep raising the bar so high, the rest of the world needs a ladder just to see it.

Dominating this space across the world takes a team. A team that runs together, succeeds together, and celebrates together. A team that’s full of relentless energy and spirit that can only be fueled by one thing: a fist full of our delicious meat snacks.

Real Meat Protein. Real People. Real Results. THAT is Link Snacks.

The Reliability Engineer is responsible for improving the reliability, maintainability, operational performance, food safety integrity, and lifecycle management of manufacturing assets across the facility. This role serves as the technical leader for failure elimination, asset health management, equipment-based food safety risk reduction, startup excellence, preventive maintenance optimization, and reliability improvement initiatives.

The Reliability Engineer works closely with Operations, Maintenance, Controls, FSQ, Sanitation, and Operational Excellence to improve asset performance, reduce losses, eliminate repeat failures, and increase operational stability.

The Reliability Engineer is expected to spend significant time in production areas identifying equipment losses, validating root causes, and implementing sustainable corrective actions.

Primary Responsibilities

Asset Reliability Management
Lead reliability efforts for critical manufacturing assets

• Packaging Equipment
• Detection Systems
• Utilities

Responsibilities include:

• Reliability strategy development
• Failure trend analysis
• Equipment criticality assessments

Failure Elimination
Lead structured problem-solving for recurring failures.

Responsible for:

• Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
• Repeat failure investigations
• Corrective action implementation

Expected Results:

• Reduced downtime
• Increased MTBF
• Elimination of repeat failures

Asset Criticality Program
Develop and maintain criticality rankings for all plant assets.

Identify:
Critical Assets

• Food safety
• Throughput
• Safety
• Regulatory compliance
• Develop risk-based maintenance strategies based on asset criticality.

Preventive Maintenance Optimization
Evaluate and improve PM effectiveness.

Responsibilities include:

• PM optimization
• PM frequency evaluation
• Ensure PMs address actual failure modes.

Food Safety & Quality Reliability
Partner with FSQ to develop and maintain an Equipment-Based FSQ Prevention Program. Focus Areas:

Product Contact Equipment

• Rollers
• Guides

Packaging Systems

• Seal systems
• Detection systems
• Air handling
• Develop controls that prevent food safety risks from equipment deterioration.

Startup Excellence Program

Support and improve startup performance across all assets.

Responsibilities include:

• Startup readiness audits
• Startup loss tracking
• Startup standardization

Target:

• Right First Time Startup >95%

Reliability Data Analysis

• MTBF
• MTTR
• PM compliance
• Failure frequency
• Generate actionable recommendations based on data analysis.

Predictive Maintenance Program
Support development and expansion of predictive maintenance initiatives.

Technologies may include:

• Vibration analysis
• Thermography
• Oil analysis
• Assist in identifying deteriorating equipment before failure occurs.

Asset Team Participation
:
Serve as technical reliability leader on Asset Teams.

Provide:

• Failure analysis
• Reliability planning
• Capital…