At Barbell, we're on a mission to make the world’s healthiest meat snacks, and we have a lot of fun doing it. We’re a hands-on, close-knit team that values authenticity, hard work, next-level teamwork, and enjoying the process along the way.

Behind the playfulness is a serious commitment to quality, food safety, and efficient manufacturing. We move fast, fix things properly, and are always looking for better ways to run our equipment, processes, and systems.

About the Role

Position Title: Maintenance Planner

Location: Canberra, ACT

Employment Type: Full-time, permanent

As Maintenance Planner at Barbell, you will oversee and lead the maintenance team. You will ensure our machinery, drying systems and production environments operate safely, reliably and efficiently, with well-structured processes and strong preventative maintenance systems. You will lead and assist with equipment commissioning and upgrades. While the role is broadly aligned to best-practice maintenance planning within food manufacturing, experience with meat-drying environments, refrigeration, HVAC, and controlled-air systems is a strong advantage.

Key Responsibilities

Maintenance and Plant Performance

Analyse plant and equipment performance data to identify risks and root causes of downtime and develop and manage preventative maintenance programs. Strong preference for experience with drying equipment; refrigeration, ventilation, and electrical systems.
Work with our continuous improvement engineer to implement initiatives aimed at reducing unplanned downtime.
Assist with the development, implementation of engineering standards for all production equipment, with drying room performance and reliability being most crucial.
Utilise a CMMS for asset management, spare-parts inventory, maintenance job plans, maintenance history, reporting, auditing and performance tracking.
Ensure accurate tracking of maintenance costs, work schedules, and resource allocation.
Maintain safe systems of work by ensuring maintenance activities comply with WHS legislation, food manufacturing standards, company policies, and relevant electrical and refrigeration regulations.

Commissioning Equipment

Plan and support commissioning activities for new and upgraded food production equipment: meat processing and packaging machines.
Support the commissioning of specialised Biltong drying equipment: refrigeration, HVAC and ventilation. Experience with meat-drying or air-drying systems is strongly preferred.

Leadership & Collaboration

Lead, mentor, and manage the maintenance team to ensure high performance and professional development
Work closely with production, quality, engineering, and external contractors to align maintenance activities with operational and food-safety requirements.

Required Skills & Experience

Proven experience in maintenance planning within a manufacturing or industrial environment, preferably food manufacturing.
Demonstrated capability in preventative maintenance systems, reliability improvement, and CMMS utilisation.
Broad technical understanding of electrical, mechanical, and refrigeration systems.
Experience supporting commissioning and handover of industrial equipment.
Must have a relevant diploma or higher qualification, or at least 3 years of relevant full-time work experience in a similar role.

Desirable Qualifications & Experience

Hands on experience/qualifications in refrigeration and/or electrical trade skills.
Experience with drying rooms or similar process environments; refrigeration systems, HVAC, ventilation, or controlled-environment processing equipment.
Experience in meat processing and or air-dried food production.

Application Questions

To help us better understand your experience and approach, please respond to the following questions as part of your application:

Have you worked in a food manufacturing environment before — especially meat, drying rooms or temperature-controlled processing? What unique maintenance challenges did you face, and how did you manage them?

Tell us about a time you were responsible for planning or coordinating maintenance work. What systems did you use, how did you prioritise tasks, and what impact did your approach have on reliability or downtime?