Plant Reliability Lead

Summary:

Use your practical maintenance experience to reduce repeat plant failures

Alpine MDF Industries Pty Ltd is seeking an experienced tradesperson or maintenance professional to take on the Plant Reliability Lead role and help reduce recurring equipment faults, improve preventive maintenance and support reliable plant performance.

Based in Wangaratta, Alpine MDF is one of regional Victoria’s largest and most advanced manufacturing operations, employing over 140 people and supplying MDF products to domestic and international markets.

About the role

Reporting to the Mechanical Engineering Supervisor, this is a practical, field-based individual-contributor role with no direct reports. It will suit someone who wants to remain close to the plant while applying their maintenance experience to reliability improvement.

You will work with maintenance and production teams to identify recurring faults, coordinate practical investigations, recommend corrective actions and help improve preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance tasks.

Working across Mechanical, Electrical, Production and Technical teams, you will turn reliability findings into clear maintenance actions that can be planned and completed by the relevant teams.

This is not a desk-based engineering position or a routine breakdown trades role. You will spend significant time in the plant inspecting equipment, collecting failure information, supporting fault-finding and checking whether completed actions have addressed the issue.

An engineering degree is not required. A relevant trade background, strong hands-on maintenance experience and a practical approach to problem-solving are central to the role.

Responsibilities:

• Identify recurring equipment faults, problem assets and areas of production loss.
• Coordinate practical investigations into repeat and significant equipment failures with trades, supervisors and other relevant employees.
• Recommend corrective actions and follow up to confirm whether they have been effective.
• Help review and improve preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance tasks.
• Support practical maintenance standards for alignment, balancing, lubrication, installation, contamination control and other precision-maintenance activities.
• Carry out field inspections and turn observations or condition-monitoring findings into clear maintenance actions.
• Improve equipment history, failure coding and asset information within Mainpac.
• Help maintain practical reliability reporting on downtime, repeat failures and equipment performance.
• Provide practical reliability input into shutdowns, commissioning, equipment modifications and selected capital work.
• Contribute practical information to repair-versus-replace and equipment lifecycle decisions.
• Work with Stores, Procurement and Maintenance to identify critical spares and potential obsolescence issues.
• Share practical reliability knowledge with tradespeople, planners and production employees.
• Work with OEMs, contractors and condition-monitoring providers as required.

What you’ll bring

• A relevant mechanical, electrical or industrial trade qualification, or equivalent practical plant-maintenance experience.
• Strong hands-on maintenance and fault-finding experience in a continuous-process manufacturing environment.
• Experience investigating repeat equipment failures and helping implement corrective actions
• Working knowledge of preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance.
• Sound field observation, problem-solving and technical-analysis skills.
• The ability to communicate clearly and work collaboratively across maintenance, production and technical teams.
• A practical, evidence-based approach and willingness to follow issues through.
• Willingness to raise safety or technical concerns through established supervisory and engineering channels.
• Experience using a CMMS such as Mainpac.

Training or practical exposure to reliability methods such as vibration analysis, lubrication, thermography, root-cause analysis or precision maintenance would be well regarded.

Experience in MDF, wood panels, pulp and paper, or another process-manufacturing environment involving rotating equipment, conveyors, hydraulics, presses or dust-handling systems would also be advantageous.

Working arrangements

This is a site-based position requiring extensive field presence in operational, maintenance and shutdown environments. Some attendance outside ordinary hours may be required for significant equipment failures, shutdowns, condition checks or commissioning activities.

Why join Alpine MDF

• Move into a dedicated reliability-focused role while remaining close to plant and practical maintenance work.
• Use your experience to help solve recurring equipment problems and improve plant performance.
• Build your reliability capability and contribute to better maintenance practices and equipment decisions.
• Join a stable regional employer with a strong focus on long-term plant performance and investment.
• Enjoy the lifestyle benefits of living and working in North East Victoria.