Senior Regional Maintenance System & Support Engineer at Sappi

The Role

Sappi Southern Africa requires a Senior Regional Maintenance System & Support Engineer to provide the leading regional role in executing the function of the relevant engineering discipline in terms of its impact on maintenance, engineering, projects, environment and safety. This role reports in to the Regional Engineering Manager.

The main responsibilities of the job are:

Adherence to best practice

• Development and updating of the Regional Maintenance Policy, SAP Plant Availability / Projects System business processes, generic Maintenance best practices (Lubrication, Condition Monitoring), Maintenance standards and suppliers license agreements. Obtain approval at the Engineering Platform
• Provide Regional Centre of Excellence Support to Maintenance; Engineering Managers, Project managers and Planning and Development Supt. to ensure competence and compliance against agreed standards and to perform quarterly SAP PM Systems compliance audits and ensure compliance with prescribed regional Best practices. Provide regular feedback and training where deviations are identified. Support mill major shuts with their “Shut Readiness” reviews and Risk assessments.
• Responsible for auditing the Project Systems (PS) and Investment Module (IM) prior to year-end and guiding data clean-up in preparation for the new Capex, Renewal and Shut Budgets loaded into the Investment Module.
• To be the regional “Go-To” engineer in the relevant discipline for all SA operations through expert knowledge and detailed understanding of the applicable discipline.
• Act as custodian of all Best Practices for SA operations (relevant discipline) by leading regional cluster groups and platforms and participating in knowledge sharing throughout the Sappi Group
• Ensure regional functional compliance with legislation and prescribed standards through detailed functional knowledge and continuously keeping developments in the relevant fields of expertise.
• Interact with external agencies (government, private, NGO etc.) to ensure that Sappi’s voice is heard on all aspects of proposed macro changes potentially impacting on Sappi’s operation in the relevant discipline. 
• Provide relevant information to Sappi globally on UAT testing and discussions with EUNA SAP process to enable regional operations to function optimally in that discipline.
• Benchmark, and share with regional operations, key engineering indices and updates so that meaningful opportunities may be taken when they are presented, with the information at hand.

Maintenance Management 

• Ensure maintenance of all newly installed equipment and that equipment remains operational friendly through detailed professional knowledge of the equipment 
• Manage and co-ordinate key supplier contracts (discipline specific) on behalf of operational units, in order to extract the best possible service for Sappi to provide a cost saving for Sappi Southern Africa.
• Provide specialised engineering support of relevant discipline regarding problem resolution and change management procedures for all manufacturing operations.
• Coordinate quality assurance for relevant mill equipment repairs, shuts and projects through expert functional knowledge of the relevant discipline.
• Play an integral part in developing the regional strategic plan by incorporating the relevant functional requirements into the regional 5-year capex plan.
• Provide Maintenance Management Support on significant failures and repetitive breakdowns, root cause determination and facilitate corrective and preventative action.
• Evaluate the Mills pre or post shut for preparedness in order to guide and advise the Mill to improve effectiveness against best practice to ensure shuts meet the deadline within costs.
• Develop and manage Condition Monitoring software License agreements and provide central point liaison between Mills and suppliers.
• Develop and manage Engen Fluid Management standards and provide central point liaison between Mills and suppliers.
• Implement long term asset preservation programs (discipline specific) at all SA mills by ensuring all equipment in the stores should be rotated every quarter to preserve bearing life and circulate lubricant, a Legend board should be visible to easily see which equipment has not been rotated. All electronic equipment to be stored in a Dehumidified room to enhance reliability. Regular checks within all Sappi SA mills.

Training and development 

• Train and facilitate implementation of regional generic maintenance best practice to achieve World Class equipment reliability, plant availability and optimal life cycle costing.
• Develop incumbents (specialist) by holding classroom training or One on One training sessions to ensure users are competent and effectively utilise the system. This includes system enhancements due to SAP System upgrades or new reports developed.

SAP 

• Ensure ongoing improvement of competence in SAP Plant Maintenance, Project Systems and Investment Management and understanding the integration points between these modules including Req to Pay, Controlling and Financial accounting.
• Ensure Maintenance and reporting of Investment Management Budgets at Financial Year end and approved changes during the year are captured.
• Provide SAP PS System Data in support of Regional Spend per project and Investment Reason. 
• Initiates the SAP PS Steering committee meeting for the sharing and development of PS Methodologies and Reports both PS and integration with PM.
• Undertake RIS Projects as required which enhance Business Security and effectiveness for the PM, PS and IM Modules.
• Maintain SAP PM and PS system configuration.

The ideal candidate should have: 

• BSc Engineering degree, BTech in Mechanical Engineering or Higher National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering
• Registered as a Professional Engineer or Technologist with (ECSA)
• Entrance to write GCC from the Department of Labour
• A minimum of ten (10) years Maintenance, Planning and SAP PM/PS/MM/IM management experience within the pulp & paper industry on manufacturing processes or other heavy manufacturing or mining industry.
• A minimum of 8 years project management experience
• A minimum of 8 Years Pulp and Paper manufacturing experience