Director of Maintenance, Strategy and Planning

Director of Maintenance Strategy & Planning

Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Industry: Mining, Maintenance & Asset Reliability

About the Role:

We are seeking an experienced Director of Maintenance Strategy & Planning to lead the development, implementation, and governance of an enterprise-wide maintenance strategy across large-scale mining operations.

This strategic leadership role focuses on maximizing asset availability, improving equipment reliability, minimizing operational risk, and optimizing lifecycle costs. The successful candidate will establish standardized maintenance frameworks, strengthen planning and scheduling capabilities, and ensure maintenance decisions align with operational requirements, workforce capacity, supply chain readiness, and long-term capital planning.

Working across multiple sites and collaborating with cross-functional leadership teams, you will drive consistency, continuous improvement, and technology-enabled maintenance practices while translating strategic objectives into practical, executable maintenance plans.

Key Responsibilities

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• Enterprise Maintenance Strategy: Develop, implement, and govern a unified maintenance strategy that maximizes asset availability, reduces risk, and optimizes lifecycle value across multiple operations.
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• Reliability & Asset Performance: Establish failure-mode-informed maintenance strategies that determine when assets should be maintained, refurbished, replaced, or temporarily removed from service.
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• Maintenance Planning & Scheduling: Lead the development of a centralized planning capability, standardizing planning methods, work quality expectations, role definitions, and scheduling processes across equipment types and maintenance scopes.
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• Fixed Plant & Heavy Mobile Equipment: Apply strong technical knowledge of mining equipment, including crushers, mills, conveyors, mobile fleets, power systems, and supporting infrastructure, to improve reliability and operational performance.
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• Asset Lifecycle & Capital Planning: Align maintenance strategies with capital planning by establishing decision frameworks for extending asset life, refurbishment, and equipment replacement based on performance, risk, and lifecycle economics.
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• Work Management Governance: Own and govern the end-to-end maintenance work management process, from work identification and prioritization through planning, scheduling, execution, closeout, and performance feedback.
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• Resource & Supply Chain Alignment: Translate maintenance strategies into predictable demand for materials, contractors, services, labor, and other resources, ensuring plans reflect operational and supply chain constraints.
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• Outage & Availability Optimization: Determine optimal outage frequency, timing, and duration while accounting for workforce capacity, skills availability, production requirements, and execution risks.
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• Continuous Improvement & Knowledge Management: Establish systems to capture lessons from equipment failures and successful interventions, ensuring improvements are shared and implemented consistently across sites.
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• Technology & Innovation: Integrate emerging technologies, maintenance analytics, and digital solutions into maintenance strategy and operational processes.
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• Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement: Partner with site leaders, maintenance teams, planners, engineers, operations, and other stakeholders to drive alignment, strengthen process maturity, and improve business performance.
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• Standards & Performance Management: Establish clear maintenance standards, decision rights, quality expectations, governance frameworks, and performance metrics to support consistent execution and continuous improvement.
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Minimum Qualifications & Experience:

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• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Maintenance, Reliability, Electrical Engineering, Mining Engineering, or a related discipline.
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• 15+ years of progressive maintenance experience, including significant field-based roles involving equipment condition, failure modes, manpower constraints, and production impacts.
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• Strong technical credibility in fixed plant maintenance and/or heavy mobile equipment.
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• In-depth understanding of equipment degradation, failure mechanisms, repair methods, and the safe return of equipment to service.
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• Extensive knowledge of maintenance and reliability engineering methodologies, including Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA), condition monitoring, and failure analysis.
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• Demonstrated experience developing and implementing maintenance strategies across multiple sites.
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• Comprehensive understanding of end-to-end maintenance work management, including work identification, prioritization, planning, scheduling, execution, closeout, and feedback.
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• Proven experience standardizing and governing maintenance processes at enterprise scale, including role definitions, decision rights, technical standards, and deviation management.
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• Strong expertise in maintenance planning and scheduling, including job plan quality, labor estimating, materials readiness, kitting strategies, and schedule risk management.
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• Experience establishing closed-loop learning systems that use failure insights, execution feedback, and performance data to improve maintenance strategies.
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• Demonstrated ability to lead change across decentralized organizations while balancing enterprise standardization with site-level ownership.
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• Strong understanding of outage planning, equipment availability, wear mechanisms, resource-constrained execution, and asset lifecycle management.
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• Proven ability to translate maintenance strategies into predictable resource requirements and cost profiles.
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• Experience connecting operational challenges with technology-enabled maintenance solutions.
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• Proficiency in Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), such as SAP PM, alongside reliability methodologies and maintenance data analytics.
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• Strong leadership, communication, coaching, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across organizational levels without relying solely on positional authority.
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If you find the role fitting for you or a someone you may know, kindly reach out to me on the below:

T (USA): +1 512 879 3588

E: M.Stadler@smart4energytalent.com