Reliability Specialist

About the role

The Reliability Specialist is passionate about Reliability Centered Maintenance, self-motivated, and works with minimal supervision. This role supports and enhances equipment reliability and maintenance efforts by owning initiatives on condition monitoring, predictive maintenance (PM), and failure analysis activities. The specialist focuses on continuously improving unplanned downtime and overall equipment efficiency through PM optimization, proactive maintenance, and other data-driven strategies.

Responsibilities

• Reliability Program Development: Design and implement predictive and preventive maintenance programs to minimize unplanned downtime, improve equipment availability, and support increased production capacity.
• Continuous Improvement Projects: Lead structured problem-solving, root cause analysis, and failure-mode review initiatives to address recurring mechanical or process issues and drive long-term reliability improvements.
• Reliability Project Ownership: Manage reliability-focused projects from concept through execution, including condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, and follow-up work generated from inspection findings. Ensure accountability, measurable outcomes, and alignment with plant performance goals.
• Asset Prioritization & Maintenance Strategy: Identify critical assets and prioritize maintenance activities using Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), condition-based monitoring, and preventive maintenance optimization principles. Establish and maintain standards for equipment care, lubrication practices, asset documentation, and reporting.
• Data Analysis & Reporting: Track, analyze, and interpret key reliability and maintenance metrics, including schedule compliance, PM completion, PM optimization, proactive maintenance work orders, labor hours, asset history, downtime trends, and follow-up work orders. Use EAM/CMMS data and inspection results to inform maintenance strategies and guide decision-making.
• Collaboration & Leadership: Foster strong communication and ownership across Production, Maintenance, and Engineering teams. Partner with Maintenance Team Leads to audit completed work, address missed opportunities, implement corrective actions, and promote proactive asset care and reliability practices.
• Process & System Improvement: Participate in Lean, 5S, Six Sigma, and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) initiatives, ensuring reliability strategies align with broader business and operational goals. Support equipment overhauls, precision alignment, balancing, and maintenance best practices that extend asset life.
• Strategic Reliability Roadmaps: Partner with leadership and cross-functional teams to develop long-term reliability and capacity growth plans, identifying opportunities for mechanical optimization, automation, condition monitoring improvements, and systems enhancement.
• Food Safety: Responsible for notifying management about actual or potential food safety issues and empowered to act to resolve food safety issues within their scope of work. If the position is vacant, the obligation for food safety and quality tasks falls to the direct manager or a qualified designee.

Qualifications

• Associate degree or technical certification in Industrial Maintenance, Mechatronics, Electromechanical Technology, Reliability Engineering, or a related field is preferred; equivalent experience will be considered.
• 3–5 years of experience as a maintenance technician, reliability technician, or in a similar manufacturing reliability role.
• Experience with predictive maintenance techniques such as vibration analysis, thermography, and ultrasound is preferred.
• Knowledge of mechanical and electrical systems, rotating equipment, bearings, gearboxes, and pumps.
• Familiarity with SKF, Emerson, Fluke, CMMS/EAM systems, or similar reliability tools is a plus.
• Ability to interpret technical data, trends, and failure modes; apply sound engineering principles and practices; and make independent decisions related to engineering problems and methods.
• Preferred experience includes working with Krones equipment, beverage or packaging industry operations, and manufacturing engineering projects of a complex nature.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, effective communication and collaboration abilities, and the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
• A detail-oriented approach and focus on continuous improvement are essential.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those required to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• Regularly required to talk or hear.
• Frequently required to sit and use hands to finger, handle, and feel objects, tools, and controls.
• Frequently required to stand, walk, bend, and reach with hands and arms.
• Occasionally required to lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.
• Specific vision abilities required include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.