Maintenance and Reliability Engineer

Blue Mountain Production Company, 31 County Road 827, Blue Mountain, Mississippi, United States of America Req #1933

Monday, February 10, 2025

Oil-Dri Corporation of America is a leading manufacturer and supplier of specialty sorbent products for consumer and business-to-business markets that has been voted as a Top 100 workplaces in the Chicago Tribune. Oil-Dri’s products are sold in the pet care, animal health, fluids purification, agricultural, sports field, industrial and automotive markets. Oil-Dri controls millions of tons of specialty mineral reserves, including calcium bentonite, attapulgite, and diatomaceous shale. The company’s mines and manufacturing facilities are located in Georgia, Mississippi, Illinois, and California. Oil-Dri is a family-controlled and operated organization that emphasizes honesty, integrity, and accountability. The company is dedicated to fulfilling its mission to Create Value From Sorbent Minerals.

Job Summary

Accountable for plant & corporate level efforts to improve reliability and maintainability of equipment (and processes) at a tactical level with the goal of reducing total sustainable maintenance costs across the plant/company. Accountable for improving manufacturing processes and systems with the goal of reduced manufacturing costs or other agreed improvement metrics. (This will be accomplished within the Process Improvement umbrella of the company).

Essential Functions

• Defines, develops, and refines the preventive/predictive maintenance program using a PDCA cycle.
• Reduces and improves maintenance work wherever feasible; assuring efficient and productive operation of plants, processes, and equipment; while protecting and prolonging the economic life of plant assets; all at the lowest sustainable cost.
• Conducts data analysis, using our CMMS, and leads the continual improvement of the Maintenance Work Cycle across all plants.
• Analyzes equipment histories to identify specific repetitive failures and effectively addresses identified areas using tools such as FMEA and RCFA.

Establish programs and coordinate on-going utilization of:

• Vibration analysis
• Thermography
• Ultrasonic testing
• Other predictive techniques
• Machine Alignment
• Lubrication analysis and techniques
• Develop/train maintenance teammates in proper installation, alignment, and lubrication techniques and practices.
• Participate in review phase, of design, of capital additions and changes in plant layout to ensure full maintainability of equipment, utilities, and facilities.
• Recommend economic studies for equipment retirement, modification, updating, etc.
• Routinely contributes to the planning of realistic production capacity based upon analysis of PM/PdM maintenance time needs, equipment reliability trends, repair histories, inspection reports, etc.
• Utilize Process Improvement Engineering principles to reach and maintain high manufacturing OEE while optimizing operational processes.
• Utilize proven Lean, TPM, or Six-Sigma style analytical and problem-solving abilities to identify opportunities for cost reduction, quality improvement, process streamlining, lead-time reduction, inventory reduction, and similar type improvement areas.
• Set improvement opportunity parameters, assemble, and train teams (if a team-based improvement), and lead the teams through the improvement processes to ensure improvement objectives are met. Effectively utilize resources that are not directly under her/his control to achieve both individual and team goals.
• Generate Process Improvement related procedures and specifications to address identified needs discovered during the improvement work.
• Be an active member of the Process Improvement Team participating with others on common projects.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, preferably in mechanical engineering.
• 5 – years’ experience in reliability engineering in manufacturing.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Tools and CMMS Systems.
• Independent self-starter who can work effectively with all levels of management.
• Possess core values of Honesty and Integrity.

Oil-Dri is committed to providing equal opportunity for all teammates and qualified candidates without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Accordingly, all employment decisions and personnel actions or programs such as hiring, promotion, discipline, compensation, benefits, transfers, reductions in workforce, and training, etc. will be consistent with the principle of equal employment opportunity.