1. Job Purpose

The Method Manager is accountable for plant-wide maintenance methods, asset reliability and continuous improvement of equipment performance. The role establishes standardized maintenance systems and ensures maximum equipment availability, safe operation and lifecycle value while reducing breakdowns, production losses and maintenance cost.

The position covers mechanical, electrical and instrumentation assets within the quarry, crushing, raw-material handling, raw mills, kiln and clinker systems, coal mills, cement mills, packing plant, utilities and power-generation facilities.

2. Key Accountabilities

2.1 Plant Reliability

• Own and implement the plant-wide reliability strategy and annual reliability improvement plan.
• Ensure the reliability and availability of all critical production and utility equipment.
• Identify chronic and recurring failures and lead permanent elimination of their root causes.
• Lead Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for major breakdowns, repeated failures and significant production losses.
• Apply FMEA, fault-tree analysis, equipment criticality assessment and reliability-centred maintenance principles.
• Maintain a reliability register, assign corrective actions and verify their effectiveness and timely closure.
• Establish improvement plans for kilns, mills, crushers, fans, gearboxes, conveyors, separators and packing equipment.
• Ensure reliability and maintainability requirements are considered in equipment modifications, upgrades and capital projects.

2.2 Maintenance Methods and Strategy

• Develop, issue and control maintenance procedures, inspection standards, checklists and technical work instructions.
• Define the correct preventive, predictive, condition-based and corrective strategy for each maintainable asset.
• Optimize maintenance frequencies using failure history, equipment condition, operating duty and manufacturer recommendations.
• Prepare standard job plans showing scope, sequence, safety controls, manpower, tools, spares and estimated duration.
• Maintain the preventive-maintenance master plan and ensure compliance with Dangote engineering standards and statutory requirements.
• Standardize lubrication, alignment, balancing, torqueing, installation and equipment acceptance practices.

2.3 Condition Monitoring

• Manage vibration analysis, thermography, oil analysis, ultrasound, motor-current analysis and other predictive techniques.
• Establish inspection routes, measurement points, alarm limits and reporting frequencies for critical equipment.
• Analyse condition trends, issue early warnings and ensure corrective work is raised before functional failure.
• Verify condition-monitoring findings after intervention and maintain complete equipment-health histories.

2.4 Maintenance Planning and Shutdowns

• Support annual, monthly, weekly and daily maintenance planning based on asset risk and production priorities.
• Define shutdown scope using inspection results, equipment condition, statutory requirements and production plans.
• Review shutdown job packages, resources, spare parts, contractor requirements, schedules and critical paths.
• Monitor shutdown execution, technical quality and schedule compliance, and escalate emerging risks.
• Lead post-shutdown reviews, record lessons learned and ensure technical closure of completed work.

2.5 Failure Analysis and Technical Assurance

• Lead multidisciplinary investigations into major failures and abnormal equipment stoppages.
• Determine immediate, contributing and systemic causes and assign measurable corrective and preventive actions.
• Control temporary repairs and ensure they are converted into approved permanent engineering solutions.
• Verify repair quality before equipment return to service, including alignment, balancing, clearances, torque and lubrication.
• Conduct acceptance inspections after major repairs and overhauls and assess contractor technical performance.

2.6 CMMS and Maintenance Data

• Ensure disciplined use of SAP PM, Maximo or the approved computerized maintenance-management system.
• Maintain accurate equipment hierarchy, asset registers, bills of materials, task lists and maintenance plans.
• Monitor work-order quality, backlog, completion, failure coding, labour booking, material usage and technical closure.
• Analyse maintenance data and publish actionable dashboards covering reliability, availability, downtime, cost and risk.
• Use equipment history and cost data to support repair-versus-replacement and lifecycle decisions.

2.7 Critical Equipment and Spare Parts

• Maintain equipment criticality rankings based on safety, environmental, production, quality and financial consequences.
• Identify critical spares using failure risk, lead time, interchangeability and business impact.
• Review stock parameters with Warehouse and Procurement and support technical evaluation and standardization of spares.
• Investigate premature component failures, supplier-quality concerns and obsolete equipment risks.
• Reduce unnecessary inventory without exposing the plant to unacceptable reliability risk.

2.8 Performance and Cost Management

• Set reliability and maintenance-method targets aligned with the plant business plan.
• Monitor maintenance cost by asset, department and tonne of cement and identify sustainable cost reductions.
• Quantify the operational and financial impact of breakdowns, poor performance and lost production.
• Prepare reliability budgets, forecasts, project justifications and monthly performance reports.
• Identify opportunities to extend asset life, improve efficiency and reduce total lifecycle cost.

2.9 Cross-Functional Coordination

• Coordinate with Production to plan interventions and minimize operational disruption.
• Work with Process and Quality teams to distinguish equipment failures from process and material-related problems.
• Coordinate integrated solutions across Mechanical, Electrical, Instrumentation, Automation and Civil teams.
• Support equipment selection, installation, commissioning and performance testing with Projects and Engineering.
• Promote operator basic care, autonomous maintenance and shared ownership of equipment condition.

2.10 Safety and Compliance

• Ensure all maintenance methods comply with Dangote safety, environmental and quality requirements.
• Include risk assessment, permit-to-work, isolation and lockout/tagout controls in all relevant job methods.
• Stop any work that presents an unacceptable risk to people, the environment, equipment or product quality.
• Support statutory inspections and ensure contractors comply with plant safety and technical standards.

2.11 People Leadership

• Lead, coach and develop Methods, Reliability, Planning, Inspection and Condition-Monitoring personnel.
• Set clear responsibilities, objectives and performance expectations and conduct regular reviews.
• Identify competency gaps and implement technical training and succession plans.
• Build a culture of disciplined maintenance, data-based decisions, collaboration and continuous improvement.

3. Key Performance Indicators

• Plant, kiln and mill availability and reliability.
• Unplanned downtime, breakdown frequency and production loss.
• Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).
• Preventive and predictive maintenance compliance.
• Repeat-failure rate and timely closure of RCA actions.
• Maintenance backlog, schedule compliance and emergency-work percentage.
• Shutdown schedule, cost and scope compliance.
• Maintenance cost per tonne of cement and critical-spares availability.
• CMMS data quality, work-order closure and inspection-route compliance.

4. Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, Maintenance Engineering or a closely related discipline.
• Relevant certification in maintenance, reliability or asset management is an advantage.
• Typically, 10-15 years of maintenance and reliability experience in cement or comparable heavy industry, including leadership responsibility.
• Strong working knowledge of cement-plant equipment from quarry and crushing through pyroprocessing, grinding, packing and utilities.
• Demonstrated experience in maintenance strategy, shutdown management, RCA, FMEA, condition monitoring and CMMS.
• Sound understanding of maintenance budgeting, contractor control, spare-parts management and lifecycle costing.

5. Required Competencies

• Reliability-centred maintenance and asset-management capability.
• Strong technical analysis and structured root-cause problem solving.
• Maintenance planning, scheduling and shutdown leadership.
• Condition monitoring and equipment-inspection knowledge.
• Commercial awareness, budgeting and cost control.
• Leadership, coaching, communication and cross-functional collaboration.
• High safety standards, integrity, accountability and ability to perform under production pressure.

6. Role Authority

The Method Manager has authority to define and control plant maintenance methods, require investigation of significant failures, recommend equipment intervention or shutdown based on risk, reject technically unacceptable repairs, and escalate reliability threats to the Head of Maintenance and Plant Director.