Sr. Reliability Manager at Balchem in Montvale, NJ

COMPANY OVERVIEW: Balchem is committed to making the world a healthier place by delivering trusted, innovative, and science-based solutions for the health and nutritional needs of the world. Balchem employs approximately 1,400 employees worldwide who provide the service, quality, and technology that enables our customers to win with their customers. We have built a reputation for delivering results to all our stakeholders. Founded in 1967, Balchem, a Maryland corporation, became a publicly traded company in 1970 and is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol “BCPC.” Our corporate headquarters is located in Montvale, New Jersey, and we have a broad network of sales offices, manufacturing sites, and R&D centers, primarily located in the U.S. and Europe. The Company consists of three business segments: Human Nutrition and Health, Animal Nutrition and Health, and Specialty Products. POSITION SUMMARY: The Senior Reliability Manager provides strategic leadership to optimize asset health, reduce lifecycle costs, and establish world-class reliability and maintenance standards across Balchem’s manufacturing facilities. With an initial focus on core maintenance fundamentals—including Clean, Inspect, and Lubricate (CIL), Asset Criticality Analysis, Spare Parts Management, and KPI development—this role will also lead the development and implementation of long-term Planned, Predictive, and Autonomous Maintenance programs leading toward implementation of Total Productive Maintenance that are fit for purpose and aligned with business needs. By embedding these foundational practices and standardizing key performance indicators, the incumbent will help build a culture of reliability-centered maintenance, sustainable uptime, and continuous improvement. ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS: Follow and promote all safety policies and procedures, including the proper use of personal protective equipment, equipment safeguards, job hazard analyses, safety observations, contractor safety practices, and required training. Actively advance a strong safety culture across all supported facilities. Provide strategic leadership for reliability and maintenance excellence across Balchem’s manufacturing network, with a focus on improving asset health, reducing downtime, and lowering total lifecycle costs. Develop, implement, and standardize core maintenance fundamentals, including Clean, Inspect, and Lubricate (CIL) practices, basic equipment care, defect identification, and condition monitoring routines. Oversee asset criticality assessments and maintenance strategy development to ensure resources, inspection frequencies, preventive maintenance and lubrication plans, and spare parts strategies are aligned with business risk and operational priorities. Partner with site maintenance, operations, engineering, EHS, quality, and supply chain teams to identify reliability gaps, prioritize improvement opportunities, and implement sustainable corrective actions. Establish, monitor, and standardize reliability and maintenance KPIs, including measures such as asset availability, downtime, preventive maintenance compliance, schedule compliance, mean time between failure, mean time to repair, maintenance cost, and spare parts performance. Define the MI (Mechanical Integrity) Program for Inspection, Testing and Proactive Maintenance. A logical combination of proactive technologies, along with planned inspections (preventive tasks) consistent with current recognized and generally accepted good engineering practice (RAGAGEP) and/or local regulations Drive the development and execution of reliability improvement plans that address chronic equipment issues, recurring failures, bad actors, and high-risk assets through root cause analysis and structured problem-solving. Support the design, optimization, and governance of preventive, predictive, and condition-based maintenance programs, ensuring each solution is fit for purpose and delivers measurable business value. Lead long-term reliability initiatives, including Autonomous Maintenance, Total Productive Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, lubrication excellence, and precision maintenance. Champion spare parts management improvements, including critical spare identification, stocking strategies, obsolescence reviews, min/max optimization, and coordination with maintenance and procurement teams. Provide technical reliability guidance for capital projects, commissioning, maintainability reviews, and lifecycle cost evaluations to ensure new assets are installed and handed-off for reliable long-term operation. Develop and maintain reliability standards, procedures, templates, training materials, and best practices to support consistent execution across sites. Prepare and present reliability performance updates, improvement plans, project status, budget needs, and business cases to site leaders and senior management. Build organizational capability by coaching maintenance and operations personnel on reliability-centered maintenance, defect elimination, root cause analysis, planning and scheduling discipline, and continuous improvement practices. Stay current on industry best practices, technologies, and tools related to reliability engineering, asset management, maintenance excellence, and manufacturing performance improvement. REQUIREMENTS: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred. 10+ years of progressive experience in reliability engineering, consultant management, maintenance leadership, asset management, plant engineering, or manufacturing operations; preference for GMP and PSM experience Experience supporting multiple manufacturing sites or leading corporate/network-level reliability initiatives preferred. Strong knowledge of reliability-centered maintenance, preventive and predictive maintenance, condition-based monitoring, root cause analysis, defect elimination, asset criticality, and maintenance strategy development. Experience with Clean, Inspect, and Lubricate (CIL), Autonomous Maintenance, Total Productive Maintenance, and precision maintenance. Demonstrated experience developing and using maintenance and reliability KPIs such as downtime, asset availability, PM compliance, schedule compliance, MTBF, MTTR, maintenance cost, and spare parts performance. Familiarity with CMMS/EAM systems and maintenance data governance; experience with systems such as Fiix, SAP PM, or similar platforms preferred. Knowledge of spare parts management, critical spares identification, storeroom practices, obsolescence management, and min/max inventory optimization. Experience with Mechanical Integrity, inspection/testing programs, and maintenance practices aligned with recognized good engineering practices preferred. FMEA experience Strong project leadership, change management, coaching, and influencing skills, with the ability to drive standardization across decentralized manufacturing sites Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present reliability performance, business cases, and improvement plans to site and senior leadership. Proficiency with Microsoft Office tools. Experience with data analysis, dashboarding, or reporting tools; Power BI experience preferred. Ability to travel to Balchem manufacturing locations as business needs require; estimated travel up to approximately 50%. The expected salary range for this position is $150,000 - $170,000 a year. #IND123 Balchem is committed to a workplace culture that values and promotes diversity, inclusion, equal employment opportunities, and a work environment free of harassment and hostility.