Job Description

Job Location: DC5 Worth St - Burlington, NC 27215

Position Type: Full TimePosition Opportunity

The Maintenance Planner & Scheduler is responsible for improving equipment reliability and maintenance effectiveness by developing detailed maintenance plans, coordinating weekly schedules, and analyzing equipment downtime and maintenance data. This position works closely with Maintenance, Engineering, Operations, and other plant departments to ensure maintenance resources are focused on the highest-priority work.

A key component of this role is converting downtime events, work-order history, and equipment performance data into actionable maintenance plans. The successful candidate will identify recurring failures, recommend preventive and predictive maintenance activities, and help the maintenance team transition from reactive repairs toward a more planned and data-driven maintenance program.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities

Maintenance Planning

• Develop detailed job plans for preventive, corrective, predictive, and project-related maintenance work.
• Define the required labor, estimated hours, tools, equipment, parts, safety requirements, permits, and job steps for planned maintenance activities.
• Review incoming work requests and verify that each request contains sufficient information before it is added to the maintenance backlog.
• Conduct field inspections and coordinate with technicians, supervisors, operators, engineers, and vendors to properly define job scope.
• Ensure parts, materials, drawings, manuals, and other resources are available before work is scheduled for Work Orders & Preventative Maintenance.
• Create and maintain standard job plans for recurring maintenance activities.
• Maintain an organized and prioritized backlog of maintenance work.
• Support the development and improvement of preventive and predictive maintenance programs based on equipment condition, failure history, and operational risk.

Maintenance Scheduling

• Develop weekly and daily maintenance schedules based on equipment priorities, labor availability, production requirements, and material readiness.
• Facilitate weekly scheduling meetings with Maintenance, Operations, Engineering, and other stakeholders.
• Coordinate planned downtime, equipment access, sanitation requirements, contractors, and production changeovers with production planners and departments.
• Balance available maintenance labor across preventive maintenance, corrective work, projects, and emergency repairs.
• Monitor schedule compliance and identify the reasons planned work was delayed, interrupted, or not completed.
• Coordinate with Maintenance leadership to reschedule incomplete work and address recurring scheduling obstacles.
• Assist with planning and scheduling plant shutdowns, major repairs, installations, and equipment overhauls.

Downtime and Data Analysis

• Review downtime events, work-order history, alarm data, operator comments, and equipment performance trends to identify recurring failures and reliability concerns.
• Validate and organize downtime data to improve the accuracy of equipment, failure mode, cause, and corrective-action reporting.
• Develop dashboards and reports that clearly communicate downtime trends, maintenance backlog, schedule compliance, preventive maintenance performance, labor utilization, and equipment reliability.
• Analyze downtime by production line, asset, system, failure category, shift, duration, and frequency.
• Identify chronic equipment issues and recommend maintenance activities based on production impact, failure risk, and repair history.
• Use data to help prioritize preventive maintenance revisions, equipment inspections, spare-parts requirements, and reliability improvement projects.
• Track repeat failures and verify whether completed maintenance actions produced measurable improvements.
• Assist with root cause analysis by gathering equipment history, downtime data, work-order details, and supporting documentation.
• Present findings and recommendations to Maintenance, Engineering, Operations, and plant leadership.

CMMS and Documentation

• Maintain accurate equipment records, work orders, job plans, preventive maintenance procedures, asset hierarchies, and failure codes within the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
• Review completed work orders for accurate labor hours, parts usage, failure information, corrective actions, and equipment history.
• Work with maintenance technicians and supervisors to improve work-order quality and timely closeout.
• Support CMMS reporting, data cleanup, system improvements, and user training.
• Maintain equipment manuals, drawings, bills of materials, vendor information, and technical documentation.
• Help establish consistent maintenance planning and reporting practices across departments and facilities.

Key Performance Indicators

This position will support and track performance in areas including

• Planned versus unplanned maintenance work
• Maintenance schedule compliance
• Preventive maintenance completion
• Emergency and reactive work percentage
• Equipment downtime by asset and failure category
• Mean time between failures (MTBF)
• Mean time to repair (MTTR)
• Maintenance backlog size and age
• Repeat equipment failures
• Work-order completion and documentation quality
• Planned labor-hour accuracy
• Parts availability and job-plan readiness

Success in This Role

Success in this position will be demonstrated by an increasingly organized and executable maintenance backlog, higher schedule compliance, improved work-order quality, fewer recurring equipment failures, and greater use of downtime data to guide maintenance decisions. The Maintenance Planner & Scheduler will play an important role in establishing a disciplined, proactive, and data-driven maintenance culture

QualificationsQualifications

• Associate or bachelor’s degree in engineering, industrial maintenance, manufacturing technology, data analytics, or a related field preferred.
• Three or more years of experience in maintenance planning, maintenance supervision, reliability, engineering, or manufacturing operations preferred.
• Experience working in a high-speed manufacturing environment is strongly preferred.
• Experience in food, beverage, dairy, consumer packaged goods, or another regulated manufacturing environment is a plus.
• Working knowledge of mechanical, electrical, controls, pneumatic, hydraulic, utility, and facility systems.
• Experience using a CMMS to manage work orders, preventive maintenance tasks, equipment records, and maintenance history.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret downtime, maintenance, and production data.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, formulas, charts, and data analysis.
• Experience with Power BI, Tableau, Ignition, SQL, OEE systems, or other reporting and visualization tools is preferred.
• Familiarity with preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, root cause analysis, and reliability-centered maintenance principles.
• Ability to read equipment manuals, technical drawings, electrical schematics, and P&IDs is preferred.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced plant environment.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ability to translate maintenance and downtime data into clear priorities and actionable work.
• Strong understanding of maintenance workflow, from work identification through planning, scheduling, execution, and closeout.
• Ability to communicate effectively with maintenance technicians, operations personnel, engineers, vendors, contractors, and plant leadership.
• Detail-oriented approach to job planning, documentation, and data accuracy.
• Ability to challenge incomplete or inaccurate information and work collaboratively to improve reporting quality.
• Sound judgment when prioritizing work based on safety, food safety, production impact, cost, and equipment risk.
• Ability to spend time in production and maintenance areas to understand equipment issues firsthand.
• Self-motivated, dependable, and comfortable working with limited supervision.
• Continuous-improvement mindset with a focus on reducing recurring failures and increasing planned maintenance.

Work Environment and Physical Requirements

• Work is performed in both an office setting and an active manufacturing environment.
• Regular exposure to production equipment, noise, temperature variations, wet areas, and other typical plant conditions.
• Must be able to safely access production and utility areas, including stairs, platforms, and confined equipment spaces as required.
• May occasionally be required to support maintenance activities outside normal business hours, including shutdowns and urgent equipment issues

Travel Requirements: (stie to site travel)

Physical Requirements

• Standing
• Walking
• Sitting
• Use of hands, fingers
• Reaching with hands and arms
• Climb and balance
• Stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl
• Talk and hear
• Distance vision (clear vision at 20 feet or more)
• Color vision (ability to identify and distinguish colors)
• Peripheral vision (ability to observe an area that can be seen up and down or to the left and right while eyes are fixed on a given point)
• Depth perception (three-dimensional vision, ability to judge distances and spatial relationships)

Alamance Foods Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against persons because of age, race, color, creed, religion, disability, gender, ethnic or national origin, or veteran status. Alamance Foods Inc. prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and will reasonably accommodate applicants with a disability, upon request, and will also ensure reasonable accommodation for employees with a disability.