National Maintenance Manager

• #1 Dairy Company globally with a portfolio of market leading brands
• Strategic and hands‑on leadership
• National impact and accountability

The National Maintenance Manager plays a critical role in driving safe, reliable and cost‑effective asset performance across our national manufacturing network. This is an opportunity to shape our national maintenance strategy, influence long‑term asset performance, and lead improvement at scale.  

Based in Melbourne and reporting to the National Engineering Manager, this role will lead a nationally consistent maintenance framework, partnering closely with site Maintenance Managers to lift asset reliability, ensure statutory compliance and deliver measurable operational outcomes across complex processing environments.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and govern a nationally consistent maintenance strategy, standards and frameworks across all sites. 
• Partner with site Maintenance Managers to improve asset reliability, uptime and operational performance.
• Drive preventative and predictive maintenance programs, supported by effective SAP Plant Maintenance governance.
• Embed continuous improvement and root cause analysis to address recurring issues and improve long‑term asset performance.
• Drive maintenance performance metrics, budgeting and cost control to optimise maintenance and capital spend.
• Ensure Health and Safety, statutory and critical infrastructure compliance while promoting a strong, proactive safety culture. 

About you

This role blends strategic leadership with hands on execution, ideal for someone who can set direction while remaining closely connected to site operations. You are a credible maintenance leader with strong technical depth, commercial awareness and the ability to influence outcomes across a multi‑site manufacturing environment.

You bring a track record of improving asset reliability, driving preventative and predictive maintenance, and leading continuous improvement initiatives that deliver measurable results. Comfortable working at both strategic and operational levels, you engage confidently with senior leaders, site teams and external partners, while maintaining a strong focus on safety, compliance and performance.

Our story:

Ours is a STORY of a family business created by the Besnier Family in 1933 and is today the worlds’ No. 1 dairy company. We are 85,000 loyal team members working across 100 countries and together we create the #LactalisExperience.

Lactalis Australia’s iconic and heritage brands are our PASSION, providing quality and nutritious products for all Australians. We are humble, proud and resilient. We care for our employees, land, farmers and consumers, which is our driving purpose to ensure a responsible and sustainable dairy industry.

We take pride in developing our internal talent and encourage entrepreneurship by bringing together pragmatic and tenacious personalities. Our accountability ensures we have ownership within our roles and with our EXPERTISE and dairy "know how", sets us apart.

Lactalis is a supporter of reducing barriers that exist due to traditional working practices and therefore flexible work arrangements will be considered for this role.