Reliability Manager

Leadership, Talent Development & Organizational Capability

• Lead, mentor, and develop the Maintenance Engineering and Inspection team, establishing clear accountability for safety, compliance, technical quality, execution, communication, and results.
• Set clear objectives, assess performance, provide timely feedback, and foster a culture of ownership, reliability, ethical conduct, and continuous improvement.
• Develop technical and leadership capability through coaching, challenging assignments, professional development, role-based competency expectations, and documented development plans.
• Identify critical skills, capability gaps, succession risks, and future staffing needs within the Reliability and Inspection organization.
• Build bench strength for key technical and leadership positions and develop employees who can lead through both formal authority and cross-functional influence.

Reliability & Asset Management Strategy

• Design, implement, and sustain a comprehensive reliability and asset-management program for plant assets.
• Translate site business objectives, operating risks, and production requirements into practical reliability and asset-management priorities.
• Develop and maintain long-range asset strategies addressing equipment condition, lifecycle risk, obsolescence, maintainability, renewal requirements, and operational continuity.
• Establish and monitor reliability KPIs that demonstrate measurable improvement in equipment availability, performance, cost, and risk reduction.
• Drive initiatives to eliminate chronic equipment issues, reduce structural maintenance cost, and improve lifecycle value.
• Anticipate emerging equipment, regulatory, organizational, and business risks and convert them into practical plans, priorities, and recommendations.
• Drive appropriate adoption of digital technologies, analytics, automation, and emerging tools that improve asset management and engineering effectiveness.

Preventive & Predictive Maintenance Optimization

• Oversee development, optimization, and execution of preventive and predictive maintenance plans.
• Implement condition monitoring technologies, including vibration analysis, thermography, and oil analysis, and ensure timely corrective actions.
• Use equipment criticality, failure history, risk, and performance data to optimize maintenance strategies and task intervals.
• Maintain a critical spare-parts strategy that supports reliability, business continuity, and responsible inventory investment.

Mechanical Integrity & Inspection Assurance

• Own and manage the Mechanical Integrity program, ensuring compliance with Process Safety Management requirements, applicable regulations, RAGAGEPs, and company standards.
• Supervise nondestructive inspection programs and validate the adequacy of plant inspection and testing procedures.
• Ensure inspection databases, records, recommendations, and documentation are accurate, complete, current, and effectively managed.
• Communicate significant asset-integrity risks, compliance concerns, overdue actions, and required recovery plans to appropriate leadership.

Failure Analysis & Continuous Improvement

• Lead root cause failure analysis for significant equipment and system failures and ensure corrective actions are implemented and verified for effectiveness.
• Collaborate with vendors, operating units, and subject-matter experts to identify failure modes and eliminate recurrence.
• Recommend and implement improvements to equipment specifications, repair procedures, engineering standards, maintenance strategies, and workforce capability.
• Capture lessons learned and incorporate them into asset strategies, project scopes, design practices, and maintenance programs.

Business, Financial & Performance Management

• Develop and manage the Reliability and Inspection department budget, including forecasting, cost control, contractor requirements, and recovery planning.
• Develop recommendations using lifecycle cost, asset risk, equipment criticality, operational impact, compliance requirements, and available resources.
• Prepare cost-benefit analyses and business cases for major repairs, equipment renewals, reliability improvements, inspection initiatives, and technology investments.
• Monitor performance and spending against approved plans and proactively communicate material risks, deviations, options, recommendations, and recovery actions.
• Partner with Maintenance, Production, Finance, Supply Chain, and Capital Projects to improve asset-investment and maintenance-cost decisions.

Capital Investment & Reliability Integration

• Identify and develop equipment-renewal, mechanical-integrity, and reliability-improvement opportunities for consideration in annual and multi-year capital plans.
• Prepare and sponsor technically sound business cases that clearly describe asset risk, reliability impact, lifecycle cost, production impact, compliance considerations, alternatives, and recommendations.
• Support capital portfolio prioritization with objective equipment-condition, risk, failure-history, criticality, and operational-impact information.
• Serve as the reliability and asset-management subject-matter expert during project development, design, execution, commissioning, startup, and post-project review.
• Review equipment specifications and proposed modifications for reliability, maintainability, inspection accessibility, lifecycle cost, technical risk, and compliance with engineering standards.
• Ensure lessons learned from equipment failures, maintenance history, and operating experience are incorporated into project scopes and design standards.

Technical Support, Outages & Operational Readiness

• Provide technical leadership to maintenance planners, supervisors, technicians, engineers, and operating units for troubleshooting and job-plan development.
• Review and approve repair strategies within assigned authority, ensuring compliance with RAGAGEPs, quality requirements, and company standards.
• Support outage and turnaround scope development using asset condition, criticality, inspection findings, and reliability risk.
• Participate in pre-startup safety reviews, commissioning, startup, performance testing, and punch-list resolution.
• Provide technical support during emergencies or critical equipment failures as needed.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Influence

• Build trust and alignment across Production, Maintenance, Capital Projects, Process Control, HSSE, Finance, Supply Chain, corporate functions, and external technical organizations.
• Present complex technical, risk, financial, and business matters clearly and concisely to frontline personnel, technical staff, managers, site leadership, and corporate stakeholders.
• Resolve departmental conflicts and elevate cross-functional system issues with clear facts, options, recommendations, and business impact.
• Maintain strong relationships with Kaneka Corporate and global Kaneka facilities and support KGES initiatives that improve consistency and excellence across sites.
• Lead sustainable change by defining the need, engaging stakeholders, establishing accountability, measuring outcomes, and adjusting implementation based on evidence.

Decision Rights & Role Boundaries

• Own execution, performance, communication, recovery planning, and results for the Reliability and Inspection function.
• Recommend site-level reliability strategies, capital priorities, standards, and resource needs to the Senior Director of Engineering & Maintenance.
• Operate within approved budgets, policies, standards, and delegated authority, and escalate matters involving significant risk acceptance, major resource tradeoffs, site-wide governance, or executive alignment.
• This role does not own the complete site capital portfolio, the Maintenance organization, the Capital Projects organization, Process Control, or site-wide Engineering and Maintenance governance.

Must demonstrate the following emotional intelligence skills:

• Emotional Empathy
• Positive Attitude
• Excellent Communication Skills
• Flexibility / Adaptability
• Interpersonal Skills

Expected Results

• Demonstrated commitment to safety and full compliance with HSSE, Process Safety Management, Mechanical Integrity, and regulatory requirements.
• Measurable improvement in equipment reliability, asset integrity, and reduction of unplanned downtime.
• Effective long-range asset strategies and well-supported reliability investment recommendations.
• Reliable execution of approved plans, budgets, inspections, corrective actions, and improvement initiatives.
• Effective development of team members, improved bench strength, and reduced succession and capability risk.
• Accurate, timely communication and reporting to stakeholders.
• Positive collaboration across departments and proactive adoption of reliability best practices.

Bachelors of Engineering (preferred)

3 years: Experience in Mechanical Integrity (MI) programs, including compliance with Process Safety Management (PSM) standards, inspection planning, and asset integrity strategies (required)
5 years: Leadership experience at the department supervisor level or higher, with a proven track record of managing multidisciplinary teams, developing strategic plans, and delivering results in high-stakes operational settings. (required)
15 years: Progressive experience in engineering, asset management, reliability, maintenance, and/or production within a complex industrial plant environment. Demonstrated expertise in driving operational excellence, safety compliance, and continuous improvement initiatives. (required)

Skills