Reliability Engineer

Job Location: Hartford City, IN. Travel: Approximately 15% throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. *Please note, previous DUI convictions can result in being inadmissible to Canada.

Responsibilities

• Improve the reliability, availability, and performance of mill assets through the application of reliability engineering principles, predictive maintenance technologies, and data-driven improvement initiatives.
• Partner with Operations, Maintenance, Procurement, and Engineering teams to identify equipment performance issues, eliminate chronic failures, optimize maintenance strategies, and reduce overall lifecycle costs.
• Serve as the technical lead for reliability programs and utilize IBM Maximo to analyze equipment history, maintenance effectiveness, asset health, and failure trends.
• Drive continuous improvement efforts to maximize production uptime, reduce maintenance costs, and support long-term asset management objectives.
• Lead reliability improvement initiatives across the paper mill.
• Identify and eliminate chronic equipment failures through data analysis and root cause investigations.
• Develop and implement reliability strategies that improve asset availability and performance.
• Establish and maintain reliability standards for critical rotating and stationary equipment.
• Support mill-wide asset management and lifecycle planning efforts.
• Review preventive maintenance (PM) programs and optimize maintenance intervals based on asset performance.
• Develop predictive and condition-based maintenance strategies for critical assets.
• Conduct Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) studies.
• Identify opportunities to reduce reactive maintenance and emergency work.
• Partner with maintenance planners to improve job plans and maintenance execution effectiveness.
• Oversee predictive maintenance programs including: vibration analysis, infrared thermography, ultrasound inspections, motor current analysis, oil and lubrication analysis, motion amplification technologies.
• Evaluate inspection findings and develop corrective action plans.
• Prioritize equipment issues based on risk, reliability impact, and production criticality.
• Utilize IBM Maximo to analyze equipment history, failure codes, work order trends, maintenance costs, asset performance metrics.
• Ensure equipment master data, failure reporting, and asset records are accurate and properly maintained.
• Develop dashboards and reports to track reliability performance and maintenance effectiveness.
• Support data-driven decision-making through KPI analysis and reliability reporting.
• Facilitate Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) investigations for significant equipment failures.
• Develop corrective and preventive actions to prevent recurrence.
• Lead continuous improvement projects focused on reliability, uptime, safety, and maintenance productivity.
• Apply Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement methodologies where appropriate.
• Provide reliability input on equipment upgrades, replacements, and capital projects.
• Participate in equipment acceptance testing and commissioning activities.
• Review equipment designs and specifications to improve maintainability and reliability.
• Support spare parts optimization and criticality assessments.
• Promote and support a strong safety culture.
• Ensure reliability activities comply with all safety, environmental, and regulatory requirements.
• Participate in safety audits, incident investigations, and risk assessments.
• Support safe work practices and maintenance standards throughout the mill.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 1-5 years of reliability engineering, maintenance engineering, or industrial maintenance experience.
• Experience working in a manufacturing environment utilizing a CMMS, preferably IBM Maximo.
• Strong understanding of reliability principles and asset management best practices.
• Demonstrated experience with root cause analysis and equipment failure investigations.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and data analysis tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in pulp and paper, tissue, packaging, chemical processing, or other heavy industrial manufacturing environments.
• Vibration Analysis Certification (ISO Category I-IV)
• Experience with Power BI or other business intelligence tools.
• Knowledge of predictive maintenance technologies and reliability software.
• Experience with rotating equipment including pumps, motors, gearboxes, fans, refiners, vacuum systems, and paper machine assets.