Maintenance Planner

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo is a global leader in beverages and convenient foods, reaching consumers over a billion times daily across more than 200 countries. Their diverse portfolio includes iconic brands such as Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Quaker, and SodaStream. With annual revenues exceeding $79 billion in 2021, PepsiCo drives sustainable growth through its pep+ strategic transformation, focusing on environmental responsibility and positive social impact. In South Africa, PepsiCo offers an extensive range of products including snacks and cereals, employing over 13,000 people across various divisions.

Role Overview

The Maintenance Planner position is based at the Prospection Plant Snacks facility in Durban. Reporting to the Maintenance Manager, the incumbent will optimize asset reliability, maximize technical availability, and enhance planned maintenance efficiency. This role involves managing the maintenance planning system, ensuring data accuracy, promoting analytical problem-solving, and applying reliability engineering principles to reduce downtime and repeated failures.

Key Responsibilities

• Create weekly provisional and confirmed maintenance schedules aligned with production, quality, utilities, and safety requirements; coordinate planning meetings following standard agendas.
• Develop and optimize 12-month maintenance master plans including estimated maintenance hours, craft allocation, spare parts management, and shutdown planning.
• Ensure readiness for maintenance jobs by defining labor, materials, contractors, permits, and safety checks ahead of execution.
• Maintain work orders adhering to strict data standards, aiming for over 80% data quality improvement; manage accurate equipment master data and ensure addition of new assets according to CMMS guidelines.
• Control backlog to keep work orders older than 30 days below 1% and manage aged backlog effectively.
• Transform OEM maintenance tasks into reliability-centered plans with annual reviews based on asset criticality, ensuring over 80% planned maintenance compliance.
• Integrate condition monitoring activities such as lubrication, vibration analysis, thermography, and inspections into the maintenance management system.
• Maintain accurate Bills of Materials (BOMs) for equipment with at least 80% completeness; coordinate spares reservation and review unused parts quarterly.
• Support inventory team with criticality assessments, obsolescence reviews, and adherence to global maintenance standards.
• Facilitate root cause analysis (RCA) follow-ups for significant downtime events, ensure correct linkage between RCA findings and maintenance actions.
• Perform loss and reliability analyses including MTBF, MTTR, and high-cost spare usage; update maintenance plans based on findings.
• Coordinate contractor tasks ensuring proper planning, scope, risk assessments, permits, and recording of contractor labor and costs in CMMS.
• Oversee scheduling and completion of all legislative inspections related to safety equipment with a target of above 90% on-time completion.
• Maintain technical documentation including SOPs, lubrication charts, inspection checklists, electrical drawings, and ensure version control and change traceability.
• Monitor and report key maintenance performance indicators monthly, driving continuous improvement from reactive maintenance toward innovative, standardized processes.
• Lead or participate in Lean maintenance projects, cost reduction initiatives, and embedding best practices across maintenance operations.

Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum 3 to 5 years of industrial experience in food manufacturing or FMCG sectors.
• Strong expertise in maintenance planning, preventive maintenance optimization, and reliability engineering methodologies including RCA, RCM, and FMEA.
• Proficient with CMMS platforms, particularly SAP S4Hana/Fiori, with a focus on data integrity and analytical reporting.
• Solid data analytical skills including Pareto analysis, cost evaluation, MTBF/MTTR assessments, and failure trend analysis.
• High competency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and data visualization tools such as Power BI.
• Experience in leadership or supervisory roles, with excellent communication, organizational, and decision-making abilities.
• Certifications such as Six Sigma Green Belt and formal training in reliability techniques (RCM, FMEA) are advantageous.

Additional Information

PepsiCo actively embraces equal opportunity employment in alignment with the Employment Equity Act. This role requires on-site presence in Durban, South Africa.