African Foundries Limited (AFL) was established to support the accelerating growth in Nigeria by making the country self-reliant for steel rebars and eliminating its dependence on imported rebars. AFL is set up to reach a 0.5 million-ton-per-year capacity for high-strength rebars and allied products.
We are recruiting to fill the position below:
Job Title: Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Officer
Location: Ogijo, Ogun
Employment Type: Full-time
Key Responsibilities and Duties
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Implementation:
- Implement and sustain TPM practices across the steel plant.
- Coordinate the eight pillars of TPM, including Autonomous Maintenance, Planned Maintenance, Focused Improvement, Quality Maintenance, Early Equipment Management, Training and Education, Safety, Health and Environment, and Office TPM, as applicable.
- Develop and monitor TPM implementation plans, schedules, and performance targets.
- Promote employee involvement in equipment care and continuous improvement activities.
- Support production and maintenance teams in identifying and eliminating equipment-related losses.
- Conduct regular TPM audits and monitor compliance with established standards.
- Facilitate TPM meetings, equipment improvement teams, and shop-floor improvement activities.
Preventive and Predictive Maintenance:
- Develop, review, and optimize preventive maintenance schedules for mechanical equipment.
- Ensure timely execution of lubrication, inspection, adjustment, cleaning, and component replacement activities.
- Implement predictive maintenance techniques such as vibration analysis, thermography, oil analysis, and condition monitoring.
- Identify equipment deterioration at an early stage and recommend corrective actions.
- Review equipment maintenance history to identify recurring failures and opportunities for improvement.
- Coordinate planned maintenance shutdowns with production and other maintenance departments.
- Ensure maintenance activities are properly documented in the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), where available.
Mechanical Equipment Reliability and Maintenance:
- Monitor the reliability and performance of critical steel plant equipment, including:
- Rolling mill stands, gearboxes, bearings, and drive systems.
- Steel Melting Shop (SMS) auxiliary mechanical equipment.
- Continuous Casting Machine (CCM) mechanical systems.
- Pumps, compressors, fans, blowers, and hydraulic systems.
- Conveyors, transfer tables, and material-handling systems.
- Industrial cranes and lifting equipment.
- Cooling water systems, lubrication systems, and centralized grease systems.
- Analyze recurring mechanical failures and recommend permanent corrective measures.
- Support troubleshooting and repair of equipment breakdowns.
- Ensure proper alignment, balancing, installation, and commissioning of rotating equipment.
- Monitor equipment wear, vibration, temperature, lubrication condition, and abnormal operating behavior.
- Improve equipment maintainability and reduce unplanned production interruptions.
Autonomous Maintenance:
- Support production operators in carrying out routine equipment inspection, cleaning, lubrication, and tightening activities.
- Develop and implement autonomous maintenance checklists and inspection standards.
- Train operators to identify abnormalities such as oil leaks, loose fasteners, abnormal vibration, overheating, and unusual noise.
- Establish equipment cleaning and inspection standards to prevent deterioration.
- Coordinate with production teams to close abnormalities identified during routine inspections.
- Promote ownership of equipment condition among operators and maintenance personnel.
Root Cause Analysis and Continuous Improvement:
- Conduct root cause analysis (RCA) for major equipment failures and repeated breakdowns.
- Apply problem-solving techniques such as the 5 Whys, Fishbone Diagram, Pareto Analysis, and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA).
- Develop and implement corrective and preventive action plans.
- Lead focused improvement projects to eliminate chronic equipment problems.
- Identify opportunities to reduce mechanical losses, maintenance costs, spare-parts consumption, and equipment downtime.
- Apply Kaizen and other continuous improvement methods to improve plant performance.
- Verify the effectiveness of corrective actions through follow-up inspections and performance monitoring.
Spare Parts and Maintenance Planning:
- Identify critical mechanical spare parts and establish appropriate minimum and maximum stock levels.
- Coordinate with stores and procurement teams to ensure the availability of essential maintenance materials.
- Review spare-parts consumption and identify opportunities for standardization and cost reduction.
- Assist in preparing annual maintenance budgets and shutdown maintenance plans.
- Ensure proper technical specifications for replacement parts and mechanical components.
- Support vendor evaluation, equipment selection, and technical discussions where required.
Performance Monitoring and Reporting:
- Monitor key TPM and maintenance performance indicators.
- Prepare daily, weekly, and monthly reports on equipment performance and maintenance activities.
- Track Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), equipment availability, MTBF, MTTR, and breakdown frequency.
- Monitor planned maintenance compliance and outstanding equipment abnormalities.
- Conduct performance reviews and recommend corrective actions where targets are not achieved.
- Maintain equipment history, inspection records, audit reports, and improvement project documentation.
Safety, Health, and Environmental Compliance:
- Ensure all mechanical maintenance activities comply with plant safety procedures.
- Enforce Lockout/Tagout (LOTO), permit-to-work, and equipment isolation procedures.
- Ensure compliance with machine guarding, lifting, rigging, and working-at-height requirements.
- Identify mechanical hazards and implement appropriate risk-control measures.
- Ensure safe maintenance practices around hot metal, rotating machinery, hydraulic systems, and pressurized equipment.
- Participate in safety inspections, incident investigations, and corrective action reviews.
- Promote safe working practices and good housekeeping throughout the plant.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Performance will be measured using the following indicators:
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): Improvement in equipment availability, performance, and quality.
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): Increase in the average operating time between equipment failures.
- Mean Time to Repair (MTTR): Reduction in average equipment repair time.
- Breakdown Frequency: Reduction in unplanned mechanical failures.
- Preventive Maintenance Compliance: Percentage of scheduled maintenance tasks completed on time.
- Planned Maintenance Ratio: Increase in planned maintenance compared with reactive maintenance.
- Maintenance Cost: Reduction in maintenance costs per tonne of steel produced, where measurable.
- TPM Audit Score: Improvement in compliance with TPM standards and implementation plans.
- Autonomous Maintenance Compliance: Percentage of completed operator inspection and equipment care activities.
- Corrective Action Closure: Percentage of RCA and audit action items closed within agreed deadlines.
- Safety Performance: Compliance with safety procedures and reduction in maintenance-related incidents.
- Spare Parts Availability: Improved availability of critical mechanical components.
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering or an equivalent qualification.
- HND in Mechanical Engineering may be acceptable where supported by relevant industrial experience and company requirements.
- Typically, 3–5 years of experience in mechanical maintenance, equipment reliability, or TPM implementation in a steel plant or heavy manufacturing industry.
- Practical knowledge of preventive and predictive maintenance systems.
- Experience in rolling mills, Steel Melting Shops, Continuous Casting Machines, or other steel production equipment is an advantage.
- Knowledge of TPM, Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, 5S, and continuous improvement methodologies.
- Experience with CMMS or maintenance management software is desirable.
- Relevant training or certification in TPM, reliability engineering, vibration analysis, or maintenance planning is an advantage.
Technical Skills and Competencies:
- Strong knowledge of industrial mechanical systems and rotating equipment.
- Understanding of bearings, gearboxes, couplings, shafts, chains, belts, and lubrication systems.
- Knowledge of hydraulic and pneumatic systems.
- Ability to interpret mechanical drawings, assembly drawings, and equipment manuals.
- Knowledge of vibration monitoring, alignment, balancing, and condition-based maintenance.
- Ability to perform equipment failure analysis and develop corrective action plans.
- Understanding of maintenance planning, scheduling, and shutdown management.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, and maintenance reporting tools.
- Familiarity with OEE, MTBF, MTTR, FMEA, RCA, and Pareto analysis.