Field Maintenance Planner

Since its founding in 1937, Krispy Kreme’s focus has remained the same - making fresh doughnuts using our founder’s original recipe. The brand’s iconic Hot Light lets consumers know when doughnuts are being made in the shop so they can stop in and enjoy them hot, right off the line.

Our Field Maintenance Planner is responsible for planning, coordinating, and optimizing maintenance activities for food production equipment across 180 producing shop locations. This role focuses exclusively on production assets, ensuring that our doughnut lines are well-maintained, work orders are addressed promptly, and service records are kept up to date.

The Field Maintenance Planner develops detailed work packages, coordinates field technicians and third-party vendors, ensures parts readiness, and drives disciplined preventive and predictive maintenance execution to maximize line uptime, protect product quality, and control maintenance spend.

A TASTE OF WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING:

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

• Maximize production line availability
• Reduce unplanned line downtime
• Increase planned vs. reactive maintenance ratio
• Improve first-time fix rates
• Protect food safety and product integrity
• Optimize total cost of equipment ownership

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

Work Identification & Planning

• Review production work requests for clarity, asset identification, and impact assessment.
• Conduct technical validation when required.
• Classify work:
• Emergency (line down)
• Urgent (quality or safety risk)
• Planned corrective
• Preventive maintenance
• Time based maintenance
• Capital rebuilds
• Develop detailed job plans including:
• Task breakdown
• Labor hours by skillset
• Required tools and rigging
• Lockout/Tagout procedures
• Sanitation and food safety controls
• Required spare parts
• Attach technical documentation (OEM manuals, schematics, torque specs).

Production Line Scheduling

• Coordinate maintenance windows with shop operations.
• Develop weekly and rolling 3–4 week schedules.
• Balance tech labor capacity against backlog.
• Integrate maintenance into planned shop downtime.
• Track schedule compliance and identify root causes for schedule breaks.
• Prioritize work based on line criticality and product demand impact.

Preventive & Predictive Maintenance Optimization

• Develop and revise PM job plans based on failure history and OEM guidance.
• Analyze PM effectiveness and recommend frequency adjustments.
• Support predictive maintenance integration (vibration, thermography, oil analysis).
• Eliminate redundant or non-value-added PM tasks.
• Support transition from reactive to planned maintenance culture.

Spare Parts & Materials Planning

• Identify long-lead and high-risk components (gearboxes, motors, VFDs, fryer pumps).
• Coordinate parts staging and shipping prior to scheduled outages.
• Support critical spare stocking strategies.
• Reduce emergency freight and expedite costs.

Vendor & Technical Specialist Coordination

• Coordinate field technicians and specialized contractors.
• Define clear scopes of work for vendor interventions.
• Validate vendor quotes and labor estimates.
• Review service reports for technical accuracy.
• Track vendor performance and repeat failure issues.

Downtime & Reliability Management

• Track Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR).
• Identify chronic failure patterns by asset class.
• Support Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA).
• Recommend design or process modifications.
• Track top downtime drivers by production line.

Food Safety & Quality Compliance

• Ensure maintenance procedures protect product integrity.
• Incorporate sanitation controls into job plans.
• Coordinate post-maintenance clean verification.
• Support compliance with food manufacturing standards (HACCP-based controls where applicable).
• Ensure maintenance activities do not compromise allergen segregation or contamination controls.

YOUR RECIPE FOR SUCCESS:

• 5–10 years in industrial food production maintenance
• Experience supporting mixing, extrusion, frying, or thermal processing equipment
• Demonstrated maintenance planning or supervisory experience
• Experience in a CMMS-driven environment
• Working knowled