Technical Manager – Maintenance & Tooling

Looking to take on a leadership role? Join our team as the Technical Manager, leading both Plant Maintenance and Die Maintenance across our two-plant Valley City campus. This position is responsible for ensuring safety excellence, equipment reliability, and precision tooling performance in a high-volume automotive environment producing tailor-welded blanks. The Technical Manager provides leadership and direction to a team of approximately 30 skilled trades employees, including maintenance technicians and tooling specialists, while fostering collaboration with Production, Quality, and Engineering. This role is critical to delivering uptime, quality, and continuous improvement while living out the TWB Philosophy.

Responsibilities

- Lead with safety: Champion LOTO compliance, NFPA 70E/arc-flash standards, and Class 4 laser safety in partnership with EHS.

- Oversee daily maintenance and tooling operations across both plants, ensuring coverage for a three-shift/five-day schedule and engagement after hours as needed.

- Drive equipment reliability: Improve press and laser cell availability, reduce unplanned downtime, and ensure PM compliance and backlog health.

- Manage die readiness for changeovers, enforce preventive maintenance intervals, and maintain dimensional capability for weld integrity and TWB first-pass yield.

- Plan and schedule maintenance activities, including plant shutdowns and contractor coordination; support installation/commissioning and project execution.

- Monitor and influence R&M performance and MRO inventory (including critical spares) to support uptime.

- Develop and mentor team members—including leads and apprentices—to build technical depth and leadership capability.

- Partner closely with Engineering and Quality to support continuous improvement initiatives, SMED, and root cause analysis; ensure clear communication across shifts and departments.

- Maintain accurate CMMS data (work orders, failure codes, BOMs) and ensure effective use of reliability tools and processes.

Desired Experience

- 7–10 years in industrial maintenance, preferably in a tooling or multi-trade environment, with 3+ years in a leadership role.

- Journeyman Tool & Die certification preferred; strong understanding of precision tooling and die maintenance.

- Proven strength in electricity-based maintenance, including troubleshooting drives, PLCs/HMIs, sensors, and safety circuits.

- Experience with laser welding cells, robotics, and press/coil systems is a plus.

- Knowledge of CMMS systems, preventive and predictive maintenance practices, and continuous improvement tools (SMED, Lean, FMEA).

- Demonstrated commitment to safety leadership, including LOTO and incident investigation; familiarity with NFPA 70E/arc-flash.

- Strong communication and collaboration skills across functions.

Work Model

- On-site leadership presence across both Valley City plants.

- Three-shift/five-day operation with after-hours engagement (calls/Teams) as needed.

- Frequent intra-campus travel; limited travel to other facilities.

- Non-union environment.

Our Philosophy

TWB values people, collaboration, and operational excellence. This position is critical to driving technical leadership and cultural transformation within our plant. We are looking for a maintenance minded leader who can inspire, execute, and develop a world-class team.