Instrumentation Technician

Overview:
**We are PepsiCo**

PepsiCo is proud to be one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies. Every day, we are dedicated to bringing our mission to create more smiles with every sip and every bite to life. Our products are enjoyed more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. Our portfolio — including Lay’s, Doritos, Gatorade, Pepsi and Quaker — consists of many iconic brands that generate more than US $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales, helping to deliver more than US $70 billion in net revenue in 2020.

Guiding PepsiCo is our vision to Be the Global Leader in Beverages and Convenient Foods by Winning with PepsiCo Positive. Through PepsiCo Positive, we are charting a new course to drive positive action for the planet and people. PepsiCo Positive is an end-to-end strategic business transformation with sustainability at the centre of how we will create growth and value by operating within planetary boundaries and inspiring positive change.

In South Africa (SA), you will find our products across the region at breakfast, lunch or dinner. At the gym or on the field. In the office or on the go. We refresh, restore and rejuvenate our consumers all day, every day with our key brands including Simba, Lay's, Liqui Fruit and Bokomo range of cereals. PepsiCo SA employs more than 13, 000 people across our three business divisions: Bakeries, Grains, Foods, Fruit, Snacks, Juice & Beverages.

**Responsibilities**:
**What we’re looking for**:
The main purpose is primarily to ensure maximum plant uptime is achieved continuously and leads the maintenance and trouble shooting of control systems/instrumentation equipment as well as ensure that the factory meets its key KPIs which include but are not limited to volume and quality compliance, costs and downtime reduction.

The successful incumbent will also be responsible for the following:

- Performs instrumentation maintenance activities associated with process plant, packaging plant; palletizing plant, utilities and facilities.
- Monitors daily downtime and institute corrective action plans to prevent recurrences of breakdowns.
- Calibrates, repairs and maintains control gear/instrumentation and associated equipment to ensure operation within set standards;
- Perform root cause analysis to address asset performance problems and/or reduce cost;
- Maintains PLCs and SCADA systems and networks (hardware and software) and perform changes/modification as required;
- Continuously evaluates the process control philosophy and initiate improvement actions in order to achieve asset performance targets;
- Implements continuous improvement on all electronic equipment in the plant.
- Assist in commissioning of modifications/projects;
- Ensures proper documentation of changes/modifications and perform internal audits;
- Fault finding and repair of electronic systems to card level.
- Fault finding and repairs of electronic cards down to component level.
- Ensure availability of spares for all electronic/control systems in the plant.
- Accurately and timeously reports process equipment deviations to stakeholders to meet/improve equipment availability and reliability targets.
- Ensure proper back-up of all PLC programs and maintain records of all upgrades.
- Ensure the safe operations of process control systems.
- Audit of control system equipment.
- Resolve daily plant instrumentation and PLC/Software issues and complete root cause analysis
- Ensure all back-up software is up to date and process control systems on the plant are functional
- Calibration of process equipment.
- Complete required testing and safety checks on all instrumentation equipment.
- Conducts all scheduled maintenance within required timeframes
- Performs all emergency electronic maintenance
- Updates and Reviews documentation relating to work done and or changes in original specifications
- Signs off on alternative systems suppliers based on equipment performance

Qualifications:
**What will qualify you for the role**
- Qualified artisan with at least N6/S4 qualification in Process Instrumentation
- Minimum 5 years maintenance experience in the Production/FMCG environment.
- Computer literate with knowledge of MS Office and maintenance software
- Must have strong knowledge and experience in control systems - SCADA and PLCs, ACDC drives and SCADA systems.
- Extensive knowledge of instrumentation, HAZOP studies, PIDs and quality standards
- Strong PLC programming skills and thorough knowledge of operator interfaces and Wonderware.
- Working experience with industrial communication methodologies (RS-232, ASI, Devicenet, Ethernet)
- Extensive experience with operator interfaces; and energy devices such as drives; servo drives; thyristors; soft starters etc.