The Electrical & Instrumentation (E&I) Maintenance Manager is responsible for leading and managing all electrical, instrumentation, automation, and control system maintenance activities across Air Liquide operations to ensure safe, reliable, compliant, and cost-effective plant performance.
The role is accountable for developing and executing maintenance strategies that improve equipment reliability, plant availability, energy efficiency, and operational integrity while ensuring compliance with statutory, safety, and Air Liquide engineering standards.
The incumbent will lead multidisciplinary maintenance teams and contractors while driving continuous improvement, asset integrity, digital maintenance practices, and operational excellence within industrial gas production, filling, storage, and distribution facilities.
Key Responsibilities
Maintenance & Reliability Management
- Lead the execution of preventive, predictive, corrective, and reliability-centered maintenance programs for electrical and instrumentation assets.
- Ensure high availability and reliability of electrical distribution systems, PLCs, DCS/SCADA systems, analyzers, instrumentation, compressors, motors, MCCs, VSDs, transformers, and process control systems.
- Develop and implement maintenance strategies to minimize downtime and optimize lifecycle cost of assets.
- Drive root cause analysis (RCA) and failure investigations for recurring equipment failures and plant interruptions.
- Ensure critical spare parts strategies are established and maintained.
Asset Integrity & Compliance
- Ensure compliance with applicable South African regulations, including OHSA, pressure equipment regulations, electrical standards, and industrial gas safety requirements.
- Ensure statutory inspections, calibrations, and testing are completed within required timelines.
- Manage electrical and instrumentation asset integrity programs and technical risk mitigation plans.
- Support Management of Change (MOC) processes for plant modifications and engineering upgrades.
- Maintain compliance with Air Liquide engineering, safety, and technical standards.
Automation & Control Systems
- Lead maintenance and optimization of automation, process control, and instrumentation systems.
- Support digital transformation initiatives, remote monitoring, predictive analytics, and smart maintenance technologies.
- Ensure cyber security and integrity of industrial control systems where applicable.
- Coordinate system upgrades, software backups, and obsolescence management.
Safety, Health & Environmental Leadership
- Promote a strong safety culture aligned with Air Liquide’s safety objectives and Life Saving Rules.
- Ensure safe execution of maintenance activities through risk assessments, permit-to-work systems, lockout/tagout (LOTO), and contractor safety management.
- Lead incident investigations and implement corrective and preventive actions.
- Ensure environmental and energy efficiency considerations are integrated into maintenance activities.
Leadership & People Management
- Lead, coach, and develop E&I technicians, engineers, planners, and contractors.
- Build technical capability and succession within the maintenance team.
- Drive performance management, training, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Foster strong collaboration between operations, engineering, reliability, procurement, and SHEQ teams.
Budget & Performance Management
- Develop and manage E&I maintenance budgets and cost control initiatives.
- Monitor maintenance KPIs including MTBF, MTTR, equipment availability, maintenance compliance, and energy performance.
- Drive maintenance productivity and optimization initiatives.
- Support shutdown planning and execution activities.
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Qualifications
1. Bachelor’s Degree or National Diploma in Electrical Engineering, Instrumentation Engineering,
2. Electronic Engineering, or related discipline.
3. Government Certificate of Competency (GCC Factories) advantageous.
4. Trade Test in Electrical or Instrumentation discipline advantageou s.
Experience
1. Minimum 8–10 years’ maintenance experience within industrial, petrochemical, manufacturing, gas, chemical, mining, or energy environments.
2. Minimum 5 years’ experience in a leadership or maintenance management role.
3. Experience with industrial gas operations, process plants, compressors, cryogenic systems, or bulk gas facilities advantageous.
4. Strong experience in PLC, SCADA, DCS, instrumentation, and electrical distribution systems.
Technical Skills
1. Strong knowledge of reliability engineering and asset management principles.
2. Experience with CMMS systems such as SAP PM, Maximo, or similar.
3. Knowledge of predictive maintenance technologies and condition monitoring.
4. Understanding of electrical protection systems and industrial automation.
5. Knowledge of statutory compliance and engineering standards.
Competencies
1. Strong leadership and people management capability.
2. Strategic and analytical thinking.
3. Problem-solving and decision-making skills.
4. Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills.
5. High level of safety awareness and operational discipline.
6. Ability to work in high-risk industrial environments.
7. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
8. Plant electrical and instrumentation availability.
9. Maintenance compliance and backlog management.
10. Reduction in unplanned downtime.
11. Safety and compliance performance.
12. Maintenance cost performance versus budget.
13.Reliability improvement initiatives implemented.
14. Calibration and statutory compliance completion rates.
15. Team performance and capability development.
Our Differences make our Performance
At Air Liquide, we are committed to build a diverse and inclusive workplace that embraces the diversity of our employees, our customers, patients, community stakeholders and cultures across the world.
We welcome and consider applications from all qualified applicants, regardless of their background. We strongly believe a diverse organization opens up opportunities for people to express their talent, both individually and collectively and it helps foster our ability to innovate by living our fundamentals, acting for our success and creating an engaging environment in a changing world.
