Equipment Reliability Engineer

At Link Snacks , we show up hungry, roll up our sleeves, plaid or otherwise, and dive straight into the hard work. We don’t hide from challenges; we hunt them down. We push harder, move faster, and take the kinds of big swings that built this business in the North Woods of Wisconsin four decades ago.

We’re everyday people who deliver extraordinary results. Innovation, creativity, and urgency aren’t buzzwords, they’re expectations. And just like the real protein snacks we make across our global house of brands: Jack Link’s® , Lorissa’s™ Organic Snacks , Golden Island® , BiFi® , Peperami® and KOOEE!® to name a few, there’s nothing artificial about us. What you see is exactly what you get: humble, gritty, passionate people who show up every day ready to not just be a participate in the meat snack industry that the Link Family created, but to move faster, innovate harder and keep raising the bar so high, the rest of the world needs a ladder just to see it.

Dominating this space across the world takes a team. A team that runs together, succeeds together, and celebrates together. A team that’s full of relentless energy and spirit that can only be fueled by one thing: a fist full of our delicious meat snacks.

Real Meat Protein. Real People. Real Results. THAT is Link Snacks.

The Reliability Engineer is responsible for improving the reliability, maintainability, operational performance, food safety integrity, and lifecycle management of manufacturing assets across the facility. This role serves as the technical leader for failure elimination, asset health management, equipment-based food safety risk reduction, startup excellence, preventive maintenance optimization, and reliability improvement initiatives.

The Reliability Engineer works closely with Operations, Maintenance, Controls, FSQ, Sanitation, and Operational Excellence to improve asset performance, reduce losses, eliminate repeat failures, and increase operational stability.The Reliability Engineer is expected to spend significant time in production areas identifying equipment losses, validating root causes, and implementing sustainable corrective actions.

Primary Responsibilities

Asset Reliability Management Lead reliability efforts for critical manufacturing assets

Responsibilities include

Failure Elimination Lead structured problem-solving for recurring failures.

Expected Results

- Reduced downtime
- Increased MTBF
- Elimination of repeat failures

Asset Criticality Program Develop and maintain criticality rankings for all plant assets.

Identify: Critical Assets

Equipment impacting

- Food safety
- Throughput
- Safety
- Regulatory compliance
- Develop risk-based maintenance strategies based on asset criticality.

Preventive Maintenance Optimization Evaluate and improve PM effectiveness.

Food Safety & Quality Reliability Partner with FSQ to develop and maintain an Equipment-Based FSQ Prevention Program. Focus Areas:

Product Contact Equipment

- Belts
- Conveyors
- Rollers
- Guides

Packaging Systems

- Seal systems
- Vacuum systems
- Detection systems

Environmental Systems

- Refrigeration
- Air handling
- Condensation control
- Develop controls that prevent food safety risks from equipment deterioration.

Startup Excellence Program

Support and improve startup performance across all assets. Responsibilities include:

- Startup readiness audits
- Startup failure analysis
- Startup loss tracking
- Startup standardization

Target

- Right First Time Startup >95%

Analyze equipment performance data. Monitor

- MTBF
- MTTR
- OEE losses
- Downtime drivers
- PM compliance
- PM effectiveness
- Failure frequency
- Generate actionable recommendations based on data analysis.

Predictive Maintenance Program Support development and expansion of predictive maintenance initiatives.

Technologies may include

- Vibration analysis
- Thermography
- Ultrasonics
- Oil analysis
- Motor circuit testing
- Assist in identifying deteriorating equipment before failure occurs.

Asset Team Participation : Serve as technical reliability leader on Asset Teams.

Provide

- Failure analysis
- Reliability planning
- Equipment risk assessment
- Capital recommendations

Capital Planning Support : Support Engineering and Maintenance leadership in developing capital plans.

Identify opportunities related to

- Reliability improvements
- Obsolescence risks
- Capacity constraints
- FSQ risk reduction
- Develop business cases and ROI analyses.

Controls and Automation Reliability : Partner with Controls Engineering to improve automation reliability.

Focus Areas

- Sensor failure reduction
- Network reliability
- PLC stability
- Detection systems
- Startup controls

Continuous Improvement: Support TPM and Operational Excellence initiatives.

Lead improvements in

- Reliability systems
- Equipment performance
- Loss elimination
- Equipment ownership

Leadership Expectations : Although not a direct supervisory role, the Reliability Engineer is expected to influence and lead through technical expertise.

Expected to

- Drive accountability
- Challenge ineffective practices
- Influence cross-functional teams
- Facilitate technical decision making
- Lead reliability initiatives

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Reliability Metrics

- MTBF improvement
- MTTR reduction
- Downtime reduction
- Repeat failure elimination

Asset Performance

- OEE improvement
- Throughput improvement
- Startup reliability

Maintenance Performance

- PM effectiveness
- Predictive maintenance effectiveness
- Planned maintenance percentage

Food Safety

- Equipment-related FSQ incidents
- Foreign material events
- Equipment-related quality deviations

Financial

- Maintenance cost reduction
- Reliability project ROI
- Capital project effectiveness

Responsibilities

Ovens; Packaging Equipment; Material Handling Systems; Detection Systems; Utilities; Asset health monitoring; Reliability strategy development; Failure trend analysis; Life cycle management; Equipment criticality assessments; Root Cause Analysis (RCA); Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA); Repeat failure investigations; Corrective action implementation; PM optimization; PM frequency evaluation; Condition-based maintenance development; Predictive maintenance deployment; Ensure PMs address actual failure modes.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or a related technical discipline; 3 + years manufacturing reliability experience; Experience with industrial production equipment; Experience leading root cause investigations; Experience with PM optimization; Root Cause Analysis; FMEA; Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM); Asset Criticality Analysis; CMMS Systems; Reliability Metrics

Nice to have

7 + years manufacturing reliability experience; Food manufacturing experience; RTE manufacturing experience; TPM implementation experience; PM/PdM development experience; SAP PM, MM; Fiix; EAM Systems; Power BI; Vibration Analysis; Thermography