Senior Plant Engineer

About SunOpta

SunOpta delivers customized supply chain solutions and innovation for top brands, retailers, and foodservice providers across a broad portfolio of beverages, broths, and better-for-you snacks. With over 50 years of expertise, SunOpta fuels customers’ growth with high-quality, sustainability-forward solutions distributed through retail, club, foodservice, and e-commerce channels across North America. 

Job Summary: 

The Senior Plant Engineer plans, oversees, coordinates, and manages the development, design, construction, and modification of equipment, production lines, and facilities. The role supports business growth by leading and supporting capital projects, analyzing systems, and driving innovation and continuous improvement in systems and processes. The Senior Plant Engineer also supports plant-wide efforts to improve equipment reliability, uptime, sustainability, energy and utility efficiency, food safety, process performance, and manufacturing cost.

Essential Functions of the Job:

• Provides reliability engineering expertise that supports our maintenance and reliability efforts and assures asset life at or beyond the standards.
• Develops, manages, and executes the plant capital plan and budget, providing final capital investment recommendations to the Plant Director.
• Ensures required licenses and permits are obtained and maintained (air, water, fire, etc.).
• Prepares bid sheets and contract specifications.
• Tests newly installed equipment to ensure fulfillment of contract specifications.

• Serves as technical owner for the Process Safety Management (PSM) program and ensures compliance with applicable regulatory requirements.

• Collaborates with cross-functional groups including Safety, Production/Operations, Maintenance, Human Resources, Quality, Supply Chain, Warehouse, and Finance to meet production targets.
• Develops, recommends, and implements measures to improve plant equipment to maximize efficiency.
• Oversees applicable installation, modifications, quality testing, operating procedures, and inspection processes adhering to engineering principles and safety regulations.
• Serves as a safety model, promoting a high level of safety awareness and continuous improvement in safety practices, including use of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) as required.
• Maintains collaborative and professional vendor/contractor relationships.
• Follows engineering standards on sanitation design for food safety and quality of food.
• Facilitates coordination between Maintenance and Operations in solving process issues.
• Adheres to company GMP’s (good manufacturing practices), safety procedures and all other quality processes.
• All other duties, as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• No direct reports
• Leadership role with responsibilities that include coaching, developing and influencing others.
• Leads cross-functional project teams and manages external engineering firms, contractors, and equipment suppliers to ensure successful project execution.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Technology or related discipline.

• 8+ years of progressive engineering experience in food, beverage, dairy, consumer packaged goods, or related manufacturing environments, including driving improvements in a production facility, capital project execution and manufacturing support responsibilities.
• Experience with utilities; chiller systems; cooling towers; boilers; wastewater. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certified/Licensed Professional Engineer
• Automation and controls experience 
• TPM and/or LEAN manufacturing experience
• Experience with PC, AutoCAD, and PLC driven components
• Aseptic experience – TetraPak a plus
• SQF training

Knowledge and Skills:

• Ability to lead and execute projects.
• Models a strong sense of ownership and accountability.
• Ability to drive and influence change.
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally with departments and teams across the organization, as well as with external contractors and vendors.
• Mechanical skills/aptitude, including thermodynamics.
• Knowledge of high-speed fillers in an aseptic plant preferred.
• Polished project management skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated knowledge of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint software.

Additional Considerations:

• Travel Expectation: Up to 10%.
• Location: This position will be at our Plant in Midlothian, TX.
• Work Environment: Approximately 40% of the work is performed in an office environment; 60% in a production or manufacturing environment.
• Relocation or international remote working arrangements (outside of the US) will not be considered.

Featured Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Paid Family leave
• Paid maternity leave
• 401(k) with Match
• Voluntary Life, Accident, Critical Illness and Hospital indemnity
• Paid Holidays
• Tuition assistance
• Short-term and Long-term Disability insurance

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time, with or without notice.

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER 
EOE M/W/VET/DISABLED