Maintenance Manager – Mining & Heavy Equipment

Location: Kathu, Northern Cape

Industry: Mining / Heavy Equipment / Manufacturing

Employment: Permanent

Role Overview

Our client, a well-established international mining and industrial organisation, is seeking an experienced Maintenance Manager to lead maintenance strategy and execution across its operational assets in the Northern Cape.

The position is responsible for ensuring the safe, reliable and cost-effective operation of plant, machinery and mobile equipment across surface and underground environments.

The successful candidate will take ownership of asset reliability, workshop performance, preventive and predictive maintenance, maintenance budgets, contractor management and the development of a high-performing technical team.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement maintenance strategies focused on reliability, availability and reduced unplanned downtime.
• Manage workshop operations and maintenance schedules.
• Improve asset availability through preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance.
• Monitor maintenance KPIs including MTBF and MTTR .
• Analyse recurring equipment failures and implement root-cause corrective actions.
• Oversee inspections, servicing, repairs, calibration and lubrication of equipment.
• Manage maintenance requirements for trucks, heavy machinery and associated operational equipment.
• Develop and control the annual maintenance budget.
• Manage labour, spare parts, contractors and equipment-related expenditure.
• Identify cost-saving opportunities through improved procurement, resource utilisation and maintenance planning.
• Ensure maintenance activities comply with health, safety, environmental and quality requirements.
• Conduct risk assessments and safety audits.
• Ensure compliance with relevant ISO requirements, internal standards and Process Safety Management principles.
• Implement lean maintenance and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) principles.
• Use equipment-performance data and condition monitoring to optimise plant and machinery.
• Identify opportunities for equipment upgrades, automation and modernisation.
• Coordinate planned shutdowns and maintenance activities with operational teams.
• Manage urgent breakdowns and ensure rapid restoration of equipment.
• Lead, mentor and develop the maintenance team.
• Manage external contractors, service providers and vendors.
• Maintain accurate maintenance records and reporting.
• Support the continued development and use of the maintenance-management system, including D365.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering .
• Mechanical or Millwright Red Seal / trade qualification highly relevant to the role.
• Minimum 5 years' experience in a Maintenance Management position .
• Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, maintenance and quality systems.
• Minimum 5 years' relevant exposure to maintenance principles within an operational or production environment.
• Demonstrated experience with trucks and heavy machinery .
• Strong workshop and operational maintenance experience.
• Proven team leadership and people-management capability.
• Strong budgeting and cost-control experience.
• Good planning, scheduling and stakeholder-management skills.

The original specification lists both an engineering degree and a Mechanical/Millwright Red Seal, so I would confirm with the client whether both are compulsory or whether one route can substitute for the other before screening candidates too aggressively.

Advantageous

• Explosives manufacturing experience.
• Mining-services or mining-contractor experience.
• Exposure to both surface and underground mining operations.
• TPM / lean-maintenance exposure.
• Predictive-maintenance and condition-monitoring experience.
• D365 or another CMMS / maintenance-management system.
• Experience managing large workshops, fleets or mobile equipment.

Key Competencies

• Asset and equipment reliability
• Workshop management
• Preventive and predictive maintenance
• Heavy equipment maintenance
• Team leadership
• Budget and cost control
• Safety and compliance
• Maintenance planning and scheduling
• Contractor and vendor management
• Continuous improvement
• Data-driven decision making
• Spare-parts and inventory management