Maintenance Director

Job Details:

Job Location:

7500 - Skokie, IL 60077, Position Type:
Full Time, Salary Range: $ - $ Salary, Job Shift: First Shift, Position Overview

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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,…