Reliability & Maintenance Manager

As a leader and innovator in the snack food industry for over 50 years, J&J Snack Foods provides branded snack foods to foodservice and retail supermarket outlets across the U.S. Its products include such icons as SUPERPRETZEL, ICEE, and Dippin’ Dots along with other key brands like LUIGI’S Real Italian Ice, The Funnel Cake Factory Funnel Cakes, and Hola Churros. J&J also has a strong presence in bakery providing cakes, cookies, and pies to some of the largest grocery and convenience retailers in industry. Our company continues to deliver record sales led by a talented team and a commitment to “Fun Served Here”.
POSITION SUMMARY:
Reporting to the Plant Manager, the Reliability and Maintenance Manager is responsible for leading the plant’s maintenance, engineering, and reliability functions to support safe, efficient, and consistent plant operations. In a snack food manufacturing environment, product quality, safety, cost, and service all depend on reliable equipment performance. This role ensures the plant’s assets are a competitive advantage, not a daily operational risk.
The Reliability and Maintenance Manager leads maintenance supervisors and maintenance team functions, with accountability for equipment uptime, asset health, spare parts readiness, and technical problem solving across the plant. This leader is responsible for developing and strengthening proactive, planned, and data-driven reliability programs through effective preventive maintenance, root cause analysis, spare parts management, and full utilization of Redzone.
This position partners closely with Operations and cross-functional teams to reduce downtime, improve equipment performance, and support overall plant productivity.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
Reliability and Uptime Ownership
Owns line uptime, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), and overall equipment reliability for the plant.
Leads the plant toward a more planned, proactive, and data-driven maintenance culture.
Develops and maintains preventive and predictive maintenance programs that improve equipment performance and reduce downtime.
Leads root cause analysis and corrective action for recurring equipment issues, chronic losses, and breakdowns.
Partners with Production to address recurring downtime and improve day-to-day equipment performance.
Maintenance and Engineering Leadership
Provides leadership and direction to maintenance supervisors and maintenance technicians.
Sets clear expectations for troubleshooting, work planning, and execution.
Develops technical capability across the team in electrical, mechanical, controls, refrigeration, and related areas.
Oversees contractor management and provides technical leadership for new equipment installations, line modifications, and capital projects.
Spare Parts and Asset Management
Owns the plant’s spare parts strategy, including inventory accuracy, and critical spare availability.