Manufacturing Equipment Reliability Engineer

Position Summary

The Manufacturing Equipment Reliability Engineer improves equipment reliability, availability, maintainability, and performance across XL Systems’ global facilities supporting large OD threaded conductor manufacturing.

This role provides hands-on technical support to operations and maintenance teams, focusing on identifying, prioritizing, and implementing reliability improvements that reduce downtime, enhance process stability, support safe production, and increase equipment effectiveness. The role primarily supports the Beaumont, Texas facility while contributing to global manufacturing engineering initiatives and future automation projects.

As the primary reliability-focused engineering resource, this position requires strong self-leadership, technical judgment, disciplined documentation, and the ability to drive improvements through collaboration with manufacturing engineers, maintenance personnel, operations leaders, and other stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead equipment reliability improvement efforts for large CNC threading machines, SAW welding lines, pipe conveying equipment, and related manufacturing systems.
• Identify recurring equipment failures, downtime drivers, process instability, and maintenance gaps using data, observation, operator input, and maintenance history.
• Conduct root cause analysis and recommend practical corrective and preventive actions to improve uptime, reliability, safety, quality, and throughput.
• Develop, update, and maintain technical documentation, troubleshooting guides, repair procedures, preventive maintenance instructions, and standard work for maintenance teams.
• Partner with maintenance and operations to improve preventive maintenance programs, spare parts strategies, inspection criteria, and equipment care practices.
• Provide technical guidance to operations and maintenance teams during troubleshooting, repair planning, equipment recovery, and reliability improvement activities.
• Prioritize reliability projects based on business impact, safety, downtime reduction, process stability, and resource availability.
• Lead implementation of reliability improvements from problem definition through execution, verification, and sustainment.
• Support manufacturing engineering projects, equipment upgrades, automation initiatives, and process improvement efforts at Beaumont and other global facilities as needed.
• Collaborate with internal teams, vendors, and equipment specialists to evaluate failure modes, technical solutions, equipment modifications, and long-term reliability improvements.
• Monitor improvement effectiveness using measurable indicators such as downtime, repeat failures, repair frequency, PM compliance, mean time between failures, mean time to repair, and production impact.
• Support safe work practices by ensuring equipment changes, procedures, and maintenance recommendations consider safety, ergonomics, maintainability, and operational risk.
• Communicate technical recommendations clearly to maintenance, operations, engineering, and leadership audiences.
• Maintain strong ownership of assigned projects, follow through on commitments, and provide timely updates on progress, risks, barriers, and results.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of relevant manufacturing, reliability, maintenance engineering, manufacturing engineering, or equipment support experience.
• Hands-on experience supporting industrial manufacturing equipment in a production environment.
• Strong technical problem-solving skills, including root cause analysis and corrective action implementation.
• Experience developing maintenance procedures, troubleshooting documentation, preventive maintenance plans, or technical work instructions.
• Ability to work independently, manage priorities, and lead improvement efforts without requiring close day-to-day supervision.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to work effectively with maintenance technicians, operators, engineers, vendors, and leadership.
• Detail-oriented approach to documentation, procedure development, follow-up, and technical accuracy.
• Ability to support equipment issues in a hands-on manufacturing environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• 10 or more years of relevant experience in manufacturing equipment reliability, maintenance engineering, or manufacturing engineering.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Associate degree or technical degree may be considered with strong relevant experience, equipment knowledge, and demonstrated reliability improvement capability.
• Experience with CNC equipment, threading operations, pipe or tubular manufacturing, welding systems, material handling or conveying systems, or automation projects.
• Experience with reliability tools such as FMEA, RCA, 5 Whys, Pareto analysis, condition monitoring, PM optimization, or equipment criticality assessment.
• Experience supporting multi-site or global manufacturing operations.

Key Competencies

• Technical Problem Solving: Analyzes complex equipment issues, separates symptoms from root causes, and develops practical solutions.
• Reliability Mindset: Focuses on preventing repeat failures, improving maintainability, and sustaining equipment performance.
• Self-Leadership: Works independently, takes ownership, and drives work forward without waiting for direction.
• Collaboration: Builds effective working relationships with maintenance, operations, manufacturing engineering, and global stakeholders.
• Communication: Explains technical information clearly and adapts communication to the audience.
• Planning and Prioritization: Organizes work around business impact, safety, downtime reduction, and resource constraints.
• Documentation Discipline: Creates clear, usable, accurate procedures and technical guidance for maintenance and production teams.
• Continuous Improvement: Identifies opportunities to improve equipment, processes, maintenance practices, and production stability.
• Results Orientation: Follows through on reliability actions and measures the impact of improvements.

Success Measures

Success in this role may be measured by observable improvements in:

• Reduced unplanned downtime on critical equipment.
• Reduced repeat failures and emergency repairs.
• Improved preventive maintenance effectiveness and completion quality.
• Improved troubleshooting speed and repair consistency through better documentation.
• Improved equipment availability, process stability, and production support.
• Successful implementation of prioritized reliability and automation improvement projects.
• Strong feedback from maintenance, operations, manufacturing engineering, and leadership on technical support and follow-through.

Work Environment

This role is based primarily at the Beaumont, Texas manufacturing facility and requires regular presence on the production floor. The position may require occasional support for other global facilities, including remote collaboration and possible travel based on business needs.