OPERATING CENTRE: Voermol Feeds

DEPARTMENT: Engineering

JOB GRADE: DU

REPORTS TO: Operations Manager (Voermol Feeds)

CLOSING DATE: 30 September 2026

Tongaat Hulett boasts a proud 134-year history and a strong socio-economic legacy within the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa. Our technical operations encompass:

• Four sugar manufacturing mills located along the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, stretching from Tongaat to Empangeni.
• A sugar refining operation based on South Coast Road, Durban.
• Voermol Feeds, an animal feeds manufacturing plant situated in Tongaat, adjacent to the Maidstone Sugar Mill.
• A Technical Operations support function comprising technical specialists who provide high-level support to operations in South Africa and international locations.

Our current priority is to enhance overall business performance in the medium to long term, focusing on operating strategically, sustainably, efficiently, and profitably. Tongaat Hulett is committed to revitalising assets to generate cash flow and exploring new customer segments.

Role Overview

This position is based at Voermol Feeds, Maidstone, reporting directly to the Operations Manager. The role leads the Engineering team across Plant, Equipment, Facilities, and Workshops, with an immediate mandate to establish a sustainable Preventative Maintenance regime, reliable maintenance data, and disciplined work management.

The successful candidate will coach subordinate managers, foremen, and artisans, fostering shared ownership of asset care. The role may require working outside normal hours during shutdowns, breakdowns, or project deadlines and involves exposure to a factory environment, including dust, noise, and moving machinery.

Key Responsibilities

a) Financial Management

• Develop and manage the operating and capital expenditure (CAPEX) budgets for the Engineering and Maintenance function.
• Approve and control orders against budget, investigate deviations, and provide substantiated reasons.
• Drive maintenance cost control, spares optimisation, and ensure value-for-money in outsourced services.

b) Market and Industry Complexity

• Own and manage relationships with OEMs, contractors, and suppliers to acquire knowledge and develop internal expertise.
• Stay informed of feed manufacturing and FMCG maintenance developments through industry networking and best-practise reviews, including Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).

c) Leadership

• Provide leadership to the engineering and maintenance function to optimise plant availability and performance.
• Undertake strategic and operational planning, supervision, organisation, and control of resources, ensuring compliance with occupational health and safety regulations.

Purpose of the Role

To lead Voermol’s Engineering (Maintenance) function and transform reactive maintenance into a planned, preventative, and reliability-driven operation.

The role is accountable for improving plant availability, asset reliability, maintenance effectiveness, and engineering support to production through structured asset management, reliability engineering, and culture change, while ensuring safe operation and robust control of maintenance and capital expenditure.

Top Accountabilities

Engineering Strategy & Operational Performance

• Develop and execute the site asset management and maintenance strategy, aligned with business goals and ISO 55000 principles, supported by a prioritised and resourced improvement roadmap.
• Own agreed targets for plant availability, reliability, and maintenance effectiveness; share accountability with Operations for overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and throughput by reducing equipment losses.
• Implement risk-based work management including planning, weekly scheduling, backlog control, resource readiness, work-order close-out, and feedback.
• Plan and lead shutdowns and major maintenance campaigns, controlling scope, safety, readiness, cost, schedule, and safe return to service.

Maintenance Transformation & Reliability Engineering

• Lead the transition from reactive firefighting to planned, preventative, and reliability-centred maintenance, with clear responsibilities, maturity milestones, and adoption measures.
• Develop and enhance preventative and predictive maintenance programmes, job plans, task lists, and frequencies using RCM and equipment criticality assessments.
• Lead failure trend analysis and root cause failure analysis (RCFA), implement corrective actions, verify effectiveness, and reduce repeat breakdowns and production losses.
• Build internal maintenance and manufacturing workshop capability to reduce reliance on outsourced mechanical work.

Maintenance Systems, Data & Performance Management

• Own the integrity and utilisation of the Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS / SAP PM), including asset hierarchy, functional locations, equipment master data, and accurate job-card, failure, downtime, and cost capture.
• Validate baseline performance, agree KPI definitions and targets with Operations, and review trends monthly to prioritise improvements and close actions.
• Report on availability, mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR), preventative maintenance and schedule compliance, planned work proportion, unplanned downtime, maintenance cost per tonne, and shared OEE/throughput.

Asset Lifecycle Management & Capital Projects

• Prepare and deliver prioritised CAPEX plans and business cases based on risk, condition, and whole-life cost; verify project benefits and maintenance readiness at handover.
• Maintain condition assessments and integrity risk registers covering plant, facilities, and structures; implement lifecycle and asset replacement plans.

Safety, Health, Environment & Quality (SHEQ) and Compliance

• Lead and ensure compliance with factory statutory requirements and regulations, including the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act and related standards.
• Execute specific actions to address legal compliance requirements such as audit findings, non-conformances, and maintenance of training records and skills matrices.
• Participate in safety meetings and ensure Lock-Out / Tag-Out and other safety procedures are applied and documented.

People Leadership & Asset-Care Culture

• Recruit, retain, and develop engineering talent through coaching, training, skills matrices, and performance reviews, with clear accountability for delivery.
• Embed operator asset care within Operations; coach execution teams and manage resistance. Measure adoption through planned work, defect reporting, and closure of improvement actions.

Qualifications and Experience Required

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Technology (BSc / BTech) in Mechanical Engineering.
• Government Certificate of Competency (GCC Factories) – essential.
• A valid driving licence.

Experience (Essential)

• Proven track record in transforming low-maturity maintenance organisations from reactive firefighting to planned, reliability-driven operations. Candidates must demonstrate baseline performance, actions taken, and sustained improvements in plant availability and maintenance performance.
• 5–7 years’ management experience in feed manufacturing, FMCG, processing, or heavy industry, leading artisans, foremen, planners, and contractors through change.
• Demonstrated implementation of preventative maintenance philosophies such as RCM or TPM, with quantifiable reductions in breakdowns and improved availability.
• Practical experience establishing work management, shutdown planning, and reliable CMMS reporting (SAP PM or equivalent).