Multi skilled electrically biased maintenance technician – recruiting in Cardiff, Bristol, Newport, Swansea and surrounding areas
A multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technician is a key component for any manufacturing organisation and forms part of the Maintenance and/or Engineering team. They are responsible for undertaking work to keep the site and machinery running at full capacity.
Usually there are a mix of multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians and multi-skilled techanically biased maintenance technicians meaning that there are people who are experts in both elements of the work required.
The multi-skilled element indicates that employees in these positions should also be able to undertake mechanical tasks to a degree.
multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians generally undertake 2 types of work:
- Reactive maintenance where they would look to get a piece of machinery or equipment back up and running safely in as short of time as possible minimising the disruption and effect on the production plan to enable their company to meet their demands
- Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) this takes place without a machine or equipment having failed and is designed to keep machines and equipment working to their full capacity meaning that they should not breakdown and lead to reactive maintenance as often.
Multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians are generally tasked with fixing, repairing or maintaining equipment such as electrical drive systems, Servo drives, inverter drives, hydraulic equipment, pneumatic equipment and general items that need to be maintained such as lighting, alarm systems, sprinkler systems, ventilation systems, etc.
Required Skills
Multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians should be able to undertake tasks such as:
- The ability to repair, adjust and maintain production equipment ensuring that it functions correctly, reliably and within its specifications
- Use Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to be able to fault find and diagnose issues with equipment
- The ability to carry out electrical wiring tasks
- Installation of new equipment
- Be able to recognise where process improvements can be made from a maintenance perspective
- Good communication skills to enable them to liaise with other departments in order to get to the root cause of maintenance issues and establish when repair can/should take place
Education
As a general rule all multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians should be ‘time served’ meaning that they have undertaken a relevant apprenticeship in order to learn the skills that are required to undertake their role.
From their apprenticeship maintenance staff will hold a minimum of an ONC (Ordinary National Certificate)/HNC (Higher National Certificate) level qualification but some will progress on to gain a HND (Higher National Diploma) or even on to achieve a Degree or Masters level qualification such as a BEng (Bachelor of Engineering) or a MEng (Masters of Engineering).
Some candidates may hold older versions of these qualifications dependent on when they undertook their apprenticeship so you may come across terms such as an ‘Indentured’ apprenticeship. These candidates are still as qualified as the people holding the ‘newer’ version of the qualifications.
There are also a number of common qualifications that a multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technician may hold such as 17th edition wiring regulations, PAT Testing, Inspection and Testing and in some instances dependent on the environment they are working in high voltage switching.
Career path
In terms of a career path most multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians will start off through the apprenticeship route and will be placed within an organisation through links that their college or place of study has. There are a number of organisations who also look to employ apprentices directly themselves and then register them on the appropriate courses they will need to qualify.
Quite often you will find organisations looking to ‘progress people’ from low level roles within their organisation into the role of a multi-skilled Eeectrically biased maintenance technician by putting them through their apprenticeship. This can lead to good staff retention but some organisations can have bad experiences by undertaking this by helping staff to become qualified and then losing them if there is a better salary on offer for them elsewhere.
How to recruit
Utilising the services of a technical recruitment specialist to find you new multi-skilled electrically biased maintenance technicians enables you to see all of the relevant options on the marketplace which are within budget for you and you are able to provide a brief to the recruiter detailing things like:
- The level of qualification you wish the candidate to have
- The type of background or environment you want them to have worked in
- The types of PLC or brands of equipment you would like them to have worked with
- Any particular types of project you would want them to have been involved in
- How much of a bias you want them to have towards Mechanical work
- Any additional qualifications you would like them to have
Basically you would then end up with a shortlist of candidates who are the best available within your budget and that are ‘fit for purpose’ from the specifications you provide. All candidates would have been through a thorough screening process and would have confirmed that they are willing to do the role for the salary you have to offer, are willing to travel to the location and are comfortable with the shift pattern you would require them to work.
