J. PAO & CO. LIMITED
Head of Engineering
Dunstable
£70k – £80k/yr
Posted 1 day ago
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Job Overview
Responsible for developing and executing the engineering strategy, ensuring maximum equipment reliability, factory performance, food safety compliance, and capital project delivery. Driving continuous improvement, asset reliability, operational excellence, and engineering best practice across growing, production, packaging, utilities, and site infrastructure. A key role in supporting efficiency, quality, safety, and future growth plans.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Engineering Leadership
- Develop and implement the site's engineering strategy aligned with business objectives.
- Lead, coach, and develop engineering teams to create a high-performance culture.
- Establish succession planning, skills development, and talent management programmes.
- Drive accountability through clear KPIs and performance management.
Asset Reliability & Maintenance
- Ensure the delivery of preventative, predictive, and condition-based maintenance programmes.
- Improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), uptime, reliability, and asset performance.
- Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and corrective action processes for recurring equipment failures.
- Identify and implement inventory levels, ensuring critical parts are available.
- Manage our CMMS/EAM platform and ensure robust maintenance planning and execution.
Food Safety & Compliance
- Ensure engineering activities comply with food safety, quality, and regulatory requirements, that prevents contamination risks, foreign body hazards, and product quality issues.
- Support and maintain compliance with: BRCGS, HACCP principles, GMP, Health & Safety legislation and Environmental regulations.
- Manage engineering change controls to ensure all modifications are risk assessed and validated from a food safety, quality, and operational perspectives.
- Participate in regulatory, and third-party audits.
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Continuous Improvement
- Lead Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Identify opportunities to reduce downtime, waste, energy consumption, and maintenance costs.
- Promote data-driven decision-making and reliability engineering principles.
- Implement best practice maintenance methodologies across the site.
- Work closely with Technical, Growing, Production, and Hygiene teams to drive continuous food safety improvements focused on reducing food safety risks and downtimes through equipment reliability, hygienic design, automation, and preventative maintenance.
Capital Projects
- Develop and manage annual engineering and capital expenditure budgets.
- Lead capital investment projects from concept through commissioning.
- Manage contractors, suppliers, and external engineering partners.
- Evaluate new technologies, automation opportunities, and process improvements.
Utilities & Infrastructure
- Ensure reliable operation of site utilities including refrigeration, steam, compressed air, water treatment, heating, ventilation and any other building services.
- Develop energy management initiatives supporting sustainability goals.
- Maintain site infrastructure to support safe and efficient operations.
Health, Safety & Environmental
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- Champion a strong safety culture across engineering and operations.
- LOTO (lock-out/tag-out) procedures are followed, adhering to strict industry standards.
- Ensure compliance with site safe systems of work, permit-to-work processes, and contractor management procedures.
Key Competencies
- Minimum 10 years' engineering experience within food manufacturing, high-care, high-risk, chilled, fresh, or ready-to-eat food manufacturing environments.
- At least 5 years in a senior engineering leadership role.
- Proven success managing engineering teams.
- Strong understanding of food manufacturing regulations and quality standards e.g., BRCGS, HACCP, GMP.
- Strong fault-finding skills: Using meters, diagrams, sensors and logic to identify the root cause of issues.
- Knowledge of PLCs, conveyors, motors, sensors.
- Mechanical competent in electrical panels, relays, drivers, sensors.
- Electrical competent in mechanical fitting, pneumatics, hydraulics.
- Familiarity with packaging machinery, refrigeration, steam systems, and/or compressed air systems.
- Continuously seeking ways to improve own knowledge and competencies.
Key Qualifications
- HNC/HND or equivalent in Engineering.
- City & Guilds 18th Edition wiring regulations.
- Short courses or specialist certificates in:
- PLC basics: Siemens, Allen-Bradley, Mitsubishi
- Pneumatics and hydraulics
- Welding and fabrication
- Mechanical fitting and alignment
- Plumbing
- IOSH Managing Safely or equivalent safety training.
Salary
£70,000 - £80,000
Full-Time
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Skills
Engineering Leadership
Asset Reliability
Maintenance
Food Safety
Compliance
Continuous Improvement
Lean Manufacturing
Capital Projects
Utilities
Infrastructure
Health Safety
Environmental
Fault-Finding
PLC Knowledge
Mechanical Competence
Electrical Competence