Assistant Plant Engineer

Find your future at National Beef!

National Beef of Liberal, Kansas is seeking to hire a qualified professional to join our team as Assistant Plant Engineer/Maintenance Manager. With competitive pay and benefits, National Beef could be your next career move!

Competitive Wages and Benefits:

Family-friendly benefits including health, vision and dental
• 401(k) with company match
• Paid time off
• Paid Life Insurance
• Employee Meat Purchasing Program

Assistant Plant Engineer/Maintenance Manager responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Emphasis on people, culture, and food safety:
  • Provide and uphold a high standard of personal safety, proper PPE, and safe work practices
  • Drive maintenance ownership of food safety, including intervention systems, equipment condition, and sanitary design awareness
  • Promote 6S, organization, and clean-as-you-go culture across all maintenance departments
• Lead and direct plant maintenance activities in these areas:
  • Drive PM completion rates, quality of work, and follow-up on deficiencies
  • Superintendent alignment and accountability
  • Support downtime reduction initiatives and rapid response coordination
  • Promote structured Root Cause Analysis from downtime events and follow through
  • Assist in building structured training programs for maintenance technicians
  • Evaluate safety performances and promote engineered change for safety preventatives
  • Drive proper work order usage, data accuracy, and provide actionable insights
• Interdepartmental coordination and integration
  • Act as key liaison between maintenance, operations, QA, and safety teams
  • Ensure maintenance activities align with production priorities and food safety requirements
  • Improve communication flow between departments to reduce delays and conflicts
  • Support plant initiatives requiring cross-functional execution
• R&M spend:
  • Assist with department-level spend tracking and accountability
  • Identify opportunities for cost reduction through reliability improvements and planning
  • Support prioritization of maintenance resources and materials.
• Capital
  • Assist Plant Engineer in execution of core capital projects.
  • Coordinate with departments to ensure successful startup integration of new equipment
  • Support development of scopes of work, time-lines, and execution plans

This is an on-site position. This is a safety sensitive position.

Qualified candidates for the Plant Engineer/Maintenance Manager position should possess the following:

• Excellent communication and leadership skills with ability to influence at all levels of the organization
• Strong ability to coordinate multiple departments and priorities simultaneously
• Demonstrate ability to drive accountability and execution through others
• Hands-on understanding of maintenance operations in a manufacturing or processing environment
• Strong focus on people development, training, and team engagement
• Ability to work independently while supporting broader plant strategy
• Willingness to work extended hours as needed in a 24/7 operation
• Willingness to participate in on-call rotation as needed

Preferred experience

• Experience in meat packing or food processing industry
• Strong background in preventative maintenance systems and reliability programs
• Experience working with CMMS/E-Maintenance programs
• Experience leading or coordinating multi-department maintenance teams
• Knowledge of:
  • Automated processing equipment
  • Weighing and scale systems
  • Food safety and USDA Environments
• Experience supporting:
  • Training program development
  • Continuous improvement initiatives
  • Cross-functional plant projects

Must be at least 18 years of age or older.

Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

National Beef is a leader in producing fresh, chilled and further processed beef products for customers in the U.S. and worldwide. We offer a variety of employment opportunities in our production, packaging, and hide tanning facilities that stretch from the western plains to the east coast. We strive to be the preferred employer in every one of those communities, whether it's measured by the number of people employed or the good we do in the area. We invite you to join our family, wherever you call home.

National Beef is an equal opportunity employer committed to workplace diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, natural origin, age, gender identity, protected veterans status, or status as a disabled individual.