Maintenance and repair engineer

In charge of all the facilities and technology within a factory, industrial maintenance managers ensure their company’s industrial facilities and equipment are always well maintained and in perfect working order. They need to anticipate and overcome any technical difficulties the company may face at any moment. Their role involves maintaining physical infrastructure as well as looking after the safety of their teams, working as a tight unit on the factory floor.

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The life of a maintenance manager...

Preventative action

The number one responsibility of a maintenance manager is to organise the workload of their team of technicians, following up on a range of preventative maintenance across the site. Every inch of a factory usually comes with a list of preventative actions that need to be regularly carried out to ensure facilities work properly, including regularly changing parts and, where necessary, completely replacing certain machines and devices. Maintenance managers therefore need to ensure a range of preventative maintenance is carried out effectively in line with their company’s maintenance budget.

Corrective measures

In the event part of a factory’s production line suddenly fails, maintenance engineers will be called out and must correct any issues as quickly as possible to ensure production can swiftly continue. In emergencies, managers call in their teams of engineers, ask for affected production lines to be shut down and head to the site of the breakdown, managing repairs as quickly as issues can be identified. Once the fault has been corrected, their role is to lead an investigation to help understand what went wrong and why something failed, outlining new maintenance procedures where possible to prevent such failures happening again in future.

Fun fact

The PR2 autonomous robot unveiled by robotic engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, is capable of performing simple household tasks, such as washing and folding laundry. It even knows how to self-diagnose its own problems, like loose screws. And it could even be taught to attach additional devices to its frame (it’s designed for that). When you think that in the 19th century, children would be made to sneak between machinery, grease parts and remove anything that could catch fire or block them... the world of industry really has changed – for the better!

Skills

Hard skills

  • Engineering principles
  • Oversee maintenance work
  • Maintenance and repair
  • Engineering processes
  • Mechanics

Soft skills

  • Active problem identification
  • Logical reasoning
  • Formulation of opportunities

Typical educational background

Vocational training with a general engineering or technical background.

Within companies

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