About this role
<div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:20.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px">ASSISTANT PLANT DIRECTOR - Engineering & Maintenance</H2> </div><div><p><strong>JOB SUMMARY</strong><br>This position is responsible for reinforcing a culture of safety, quality, and continuous improvement while delivering best-in-class performance in a fast-paced Tier 1 automotive environment. The role heavily demands a strong technical focus, overseeing advanced manufacturing engineering projects and complex plant maintenance systems to maximize equipment effectiveness and ensure seamless serial production. <br><strong>DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES</strong><br>1. Support overall plant operations across production, maintenance, quality, logistics, and engineering to achieve targeted operational excellence.<br>2. Drive performance against key metrics, including safety, quality, cost, delivery, equipment uptime (OEE), and employee engagement.<br>3. Champion Gestamp’s safety-first culture and ensure full compliance with all regulatory, environmental, and corporate standards.<br>4. Lead continuous improvement initiatives aligned with the Gestamp Production System (GPS), Lean Manufacturing, and Industry 4.0 Smart Factory standards (predictive maintenance, data-driven optimization).<br>5. Ensure strict adherence to customer requirements, IATF 16949 standards, and Gestamp quality systems for Body-in-White (BiW) and chassis components.<br>6. Oversee Manufacturing & Tooling Engineering by partnering with program management to manage successful product launches (APQP/PPAP), optimize stamping dies, and refine multi-step hot mechanical or servo press sequences.<br>7. Direct Advanced Plant Maintenance systems, implementing rigorous preventive and predictive maintenance strategies for high-tonnage cold stamping presses, hot stamping lines (furnaces and quenching dies), and automated robotic welding cells.<br>8. Manage tool & die reliability programs, tracking die wear, optimizing engineering changes, and ensuring the die shop is equipped to rapidly troubleshoot and repair complex progressive and transfer tooling.<br>9. Support financial performance through scrap reduction strategies, energy efficiency tracking, maintenance cost control, and strategic capital expenditure (CapEx) engineering projects.<br>10. Develop, mentor, and strengthen leadership capabilities within the engineering, maintenance, and production teams to build deep technical expertise.<br><strong>EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE</strong><br>Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Manufacturing, Electrical, Industrial, or Metallurgy), Business, or related technical field.<br>Progressive leadership experience in automotive manufacturing, with a strong focus on high-volume metal forming or stamping plants.<br>Deep technical background in high-tonnage mechanical/servo presses, advanced progressive/transfer dies, and automated assembly line configurations.<br>Direct exposure to hot stamping (press hardening) processes, including roller hearth furnaces, rapid water-cooling quenching dies, and laser cutting equipment (Preferred).<br>Strong experience managing maintenance departments utilizing computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) to execute predictive, preventative, and corrective maintenance.<br>Familiarity with robotic automation (e.g., Fanuc robots, automated transfer line components, and arc/spot welding technologies).<br>Strong understanding of Tier 1 automotive customer requirements and OEM-specific engineering and delivery standards.<br>Demonstrated success in driving Lean manufacturing, OEE optimization, and root-cause breakdown analysis.<br>Working knowledge of IATF 16949, APQP, PPAP, and automotive quality validation tracking.<br>Strong leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills with the ability to influence and align production, maintenance, and engineering teams.<br>Experience within Gestamp or a similar global automotive structural components supplier environment (Preferred).</p></div></div></div>