Job title: Maintenance Project Manager

Location: Dawn Meats Kildare

Contract type: Full-time, permanent

Reporting to: Site Operations Manager

Role Summary

Dawn Meats is one of Europe’s leading food companies, with annual revenues of over €4.5 billion, more than 12,000 employees, operations in 13 countries and exports to over 70 markets worldwide.

We are seeking an experienced Maintenance Project Manager to join our team at Dawn Meats Kildare. This is a key site-based role with responsibility for leading maintenance and capital engineering projects that improve plant reliability, operational efficiency and asset performance.

Working closely with production, maintenance, quality, health and safety teams, as well as external contractors, you will take projects from initial concept through to implementation and handover. This opportunity will suit a practical, organised engineering professional who enjoys delivering improvements in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.

The successful candidate will be based at our Dawn Meats Kildare production facility in Kildare town and will have the following responsibilities:

• Lead engineering and maintenance projects from concept and planning through to implementation and handover.
• Develop clear project scopes, timelines, budgets, resource plans and risk controls.
• Deliver approved capital projects safely, on time and within budget.
• Coordinate site stakeholders, engineering contractors, suppliers and equipment manufacturers.
• Prepare capital expenditure (CAPEX) proposals and business cases, monitor project costs and identify opportunities to achieve best value.
• Support preventative and predictive maintenance initiatives that reduce downtime and improve equipment reliability.
• Drive plant improvement, energy efficiency and sustainability projects using continuous improvement and root cause analysis methods.
• Ensure all work complies with company health and safety standards, permit-to-work requirements, food safety expectations and relevant environmental and engineering regulations.
• Review project risk assessments and contractor method statements and maintain a strong safety culture throughout project delivery.
• Provide clear project updates to site management and contribute to longer-term infrastructure and asset planning.

What We’re Looking For:

• A Degree, Higher Diploma, recognised engineering apprenticeship or equivalent qualification in Mechanical, Electrical, Manufacturing Engineering or a related discipline.”
• At least five years’ experience managing engineering or maintenance projects in a manufacturing environment.
• A proven record of delivering capital projects successfully.
• Strong knowledge of preventative maintenance, asset management and plant improvement.
• Experience managing contractors, suppliers and multidisciplinary stakeholders.
• Strong planning, organisation, problem-solving and communication skills.
• Commercial awareness, with the ability to manage budgets and balance cost, quality and delivery.

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience within food manufacturing, meat processing or FMCG sectors.
• Knowledge of refrigeration systems, utilities, steam generation and wastewater treatment.
• Project Management qualification (PMP, PRINCE2 or equivalent) or Lean Six Sigma qualification.
• Familiarity with CMMS systems such as SAP PM, Maximo or similar.

INDLP