Manager – Reliability and Maintenance Planning

Zoetis is the world’s largest Manufacturer and Supplier of Animal Pharmaceuticals.

At Zoetis in Lincoln, NE, we manufacture high quality medicines for dogs, cats, and livestock. Our plant has been recognized as one of the Nebraska’s Safest Companies, with a long-standing presence in the Lincoln community. We are a clean, modern site that continues to innovate and grow.

Benefits Include:

4 weeks accrued paid vacation and 13 paid holidays.

401(k) match with company profit sharing.

Tuition reimbursement and Student Loan repayment program.

Great Health, personal, and family benefits starting day 1.

Position Summary

The Manager of Reliability Engineering & Maintenance Planning is responsible for developing and executing reliability strategies, predictive maintenance programs, and efficient maintenance planning to maximize the performance, uptime, and lifecycle of manufacturing assets. This role ensures that reliability engineering, planning, and spare parts management are aligned with site operational priorities to support a large-scale biopharmaceutical facility manufacturing animal vaccines.

The role leads a team of reliability engineers and maintenance planners and spare parts personnel, driving a proactive and data-driven maintenance culture while collaborating with operations, engineering, and quality teams to ensure asset reliability and regulatory compliance.

Hours: 1st Shift, 8:00am – 5:00pm.

Position Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

• Lead and develop a high-performing team of reliability engineers, planners, and spare parts personnel.
• Define and implement reliability and maintenance planning strategies that align with site goals for safety, quality, cost, and uptime.
• Champion a proactive, predictive maintenance culture using tools such as FMEA, RCM, and reliability-centered strategies.
• Collaborate with engineering and operations leadership to drive continuous improvement initiatives.

Reliability Engineering

• Oversee condition monitoring, predictive maintenance (PdM), and asset health programs (e.g., vibration analysis, infrared thermography, oil analysis).
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and failure investigations for critical equipment issues.
• Establish and maintain asset criticality rankings and reliability KPIs.
• Drive initiatives to reduce unplanned downtime, improve MTBF (mean time between failures), and optimize maintenance costs.

Maintenance Planning & Scheduling

• Manage the maintenance planning and scheduling function, ensuring high-quality work orders, job plans, and labor efficiency.
• Coordinate with operations for planned shutdowns, preventive maintenance (PM), and major capital projects.
• Optimize the use of the site CMMS (e.g., SAP PM, Maximo), ensuring accurate data and reporting.
• Develop and maintain a rolling maintenance schedule that maximizes asset availability.

Spare Parts & Storeroom Management

• Oversee spare parts inventory, procurement planning, and storeroom operations to ensure critical parts availability.
• Implement inventory optimization techniques (ABC classification, min/max levels, critical spares analysis).
• Ensure storeroom compliance with GMP and regulatory standards.

Compliance & Safety

• Ensure maintenance and reliability activities comply with cGMP, FDA, USDA, EU and EHS regulations.
• Drive a strong safety culture within the maintenance organization.
• Support audits and inspections by providing documentation and ensuring all maintenance practices meet compliance requirements.

Continuous Improvement

• Lead asset reliability improvement initiatives, leveraging OEE and other metrics to identify and eliminate losses.
• Implement digital and Industry 4.0 tools (e.g., predictive analytics, IoT monitoring) to enhance reliability.
• Standardize reliability engineering and planning best practices across the site.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, or related field) or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in reliability engineering, maintenance planning, or asset management.
• 3+ years of leadership experience managing technical teams.
• Strong background in cGMP and regulatory compliance.

Technical Skills and Competencies Required

Technical Skills:

• Expertise in reliability methodologies (RCM, FMEA, RCA).
• Knowledge of continuous improvement processes (TPM, Lean, Six Sigma).
• Experience with CMMS (SAP PM, Maximo, or similar).
• Knowledge of spare parts optimization and MRO storeroom management.
• Famili