Maintenance Planner at PepsiCo

Responsibilities

What we're looking for: We're looking for a Maintenance Planner Based at our Upington Dried Fruit Plant to join our team.

• Coordinate and control all planned and corrective maintenance activities across the raisin manufacturing site, ensuring seamless execution and minimal disruption to operations.
• Plan, sequence, and schedule preventative, predictive, and statutory maintenance across processing, drying, packing, and utility areas to maximise asset reliability and plant availability.
• Drive compliance with food safety standards and engineering best practices while maintaining strict cost control and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate closely with Production, Engineering, and Stores to ensure alignment of maintenance plans with operational priorities.
• Ensure readiness of all maintenance activities by verifying work orders, labour allocation, tools, and material availability in advance.
• Maintain and govern CMMS (SAP) by ensuring accurate work order creation, execution tracking, and closure, enabling reliable data integrity.
• Capture and analyse maintenance data to support root cause analysis, performance tracking, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Produce clear and actionable reports to support decision-making, improve equipment performance, and optimise maintenance strategies.

Accountabilities: 

• Drive execution of maintenance strategies to achieve best-in-class plant reliability and availability, aligning with industry benchmarks.
• Develop and optimise maintenance work plans by implementing structured processes, incorporating root cause analysis (RCA) and lifecycle management principles.
• Design and implement equipment-specific maintenance schedules aligned with Food Safety, EHS requirements, sector best practices, and PEMM methodology.
• Monitor, analyse, and report on maintenance KPIs, trends, and the full engineering scorecard to support performance improvement.
• Contribute to maintenance budgeting by analysing historical data and applying zero-based budgeting principles to improve cost control.
• Ensure CMMS (SAP) data integrity by validating work orders, verifying artisan inputs, and maintaining strict document control standards.
• Manage and optimise the maintenance backlog, ensuring timely execution and closure of all work orders and job cards.
• Support reliability engineering initiatives by conducting and contributing to analysis such as RCA, and translating findings into actionable improvement plans.
• Train and support maintenance and production teams on maintenance procedures and effective utilisation of the CMMS system.
• Integrate maintenance plans with production schedules to minimise downtime and maximise operational efficiency.
• Lead forward planning activities (weekly, monthly, annual) for maintenance tasks, labour, and materials to ensure consistent and effective execution.
• Accurately scope and estimate maintenance work, including duration, priority, resource requirements, spares, tools, specialist services, and materials.
• Plan and coordinate contract labour to supplement internal resources and meet maintenance workload demands.
• Identify and manage critical equipment and spares through structured criticality assessments.
• Continuously review and improve maintenance strategies and tasks based on team feedback, plant changes, and evolving industry best practices.
• Maintain ≥95% SAP (CMMS) work order closure compliance by actively monitoring, managing, and driving timely completion and close-out of all maintenance job cards.

Maintenance Planning & Scheduling

• Develop, update, and optimise preventive and predictive maintenance programmes across production, packing, and utilities to ensure maximum equipment reliability.
• Build and execute detailed weekly and daily maintenance plans, including Maintenance Day Plans with defined scope, resources, durations, and lockout requirements.
• Lead pre-maintenance planning meetings to align Engineering, Production, and Contractors on scope, priorities, and execution strategy.
• Plan and coordinate major shutdowns, breakdown repairs, and seasonal maintenance activities, integrating maintenance with production schedules and cleaning cycles.
• Prioritise and release work orders in SAP PM, ensuring effective response to corrective and ad hoc maintenance based on risk, safety, food safety, and operational impact.

Materials, Spares & Services Coordination

• Determine and manage spares requirements through criticality assessments, ensuring availability of critical parts, tools, and equipment.
• Coordinate external service providers and statutory inspections (e.g., boilers, lifting equipment) to ensure compliance and operational readiness.
• Accurately estimate maintenance work scope, including labour, duration, skills, spares, tools, and specialist services.
• Plan and deploy contract labour to supplement internal resources during peak workloads and shutdown periods.

Execution Readiness & Governance

• Ensure execution readiness by defining clear job scopes, safety procedures, permit requirements, LOTO compliance, and food safety controls for all work orders.
• Govern work order quality in SAP CMMS by validating job card inputs, including time confirmations, materials usage, and technical completion notes.
• Chair post-maintenance reviews to assess execution quality, identify gaps, and track deferred or incomplete work.
• Maintain ≥95% SAP (CMMS) work order closure compliance, driving discipline in timely completion and accurate system updates.

Performance, Reliability & Continuous Improvement

• Monitor and report on maintenance KPIs, Asset Care indicators, backlog, and schedule adherence to drive performance improvements.
• Analyse equipment failures and losses using RCA, methodologies, translating insights into actionable reliability improvement plans.
• Continuously improve maintenance strategies by incorporating lifecycle management principles, audit findings, and industry best practices.
• Plan and track condition monitoring activities (e.g., vibration analysis, thermography) to proactively identify and mitigate equipment risks.
• Maintain engineering documentation and asset records, including drawings, P&IDs, OEM manuals, SOPs, and equipment history for audit and traceability purposes.

Stakeholder Management & Integration

• Collaborate daily with Engineering Managers, Technicians, Production Supervisors, Stores, and external vendors to align maintenance activities with operational priorities.
• Integrate maintenance plans with production schedules to minimise downtime and maximise plant efficiency.
• Train and support teams on maintenance procedures and effective use of SAP CMMS to strengthen process adherence and data quality.

Financial & Strategic Contribution

• Support maintenance budgeting and cost control through analysis of historical data and application of zero-based budgeting principles.
• Drive best-in-class plant reliability and availability, benchmarking performance against industry standards and continuously improving maintenance effectiveness.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Certificate or Diploma Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial or equivalent).
• Trade Test qualification (advantageous).
• SAP PM / CMMS certification or formal training (advantageous).

Experience

• Minimum 3–5 years’ experience in maintenance planning, maintenance coordination, or engineering maintenance within a manufacturing or FMCG environment.
• Proven experience in maintenance planning and scheduling, including preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance.
• Experience working with CMMS systems (preferably SAP PM) for work order management, planning, and reporting.
• Demonstrated experience in shutdown planning, backlog management, and resource coordination.
• Exposure to food safety, EHS standards, and statutory compliance within a plant environment.
• Experience in working with automated production systems and modern plant equipment.

Technical Knowledge

Strong understanding of:

• Maintenance planning and scheduling principles
• Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methodologies
• Reliability concepts (MTBF, MTTR, asset care strategies)
• Preventive and predictive maintenance techniques
• Lifecycle asset management
• Knowledge of spares management and criticality assessments.
• Understanding of condition monitoring techniques (e.g., vibration analysis, thermography).
• Familiarity with engineering documentation (P&IDs, OEM manuals, SOPs).

Key Skills

• Strong planning and organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Analytical and problem-solving ability with a data-driven approach to decision-making.
• High attention to detail, particularly in CMMS data integrity and reporting.
• Effective communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to coordinate across multiple departments.
• Ability to work under pressure and adapt to changing operational demands.
• Leadership and influencing skills to drive maintenance discipline and compliance.

Behavioural Competencies

• Proactive and results-driven mindset.
• Strong accountability and ownership.
• Commitment to continuous improvement and operational excellence.
• Strong focus on safety, food safety, and compliance.