Senior Automation Engineer

Senior Automation Engineer (Mechatronics), Johannesburg

The Purpose of this role:

To lead a technology strategy that will ensure adequate manufacturing and testing equipment capacity at all plants, as well as technical engineering support for the control equipment assembling plant. This will include maintenance and upgrade of existing systems as well as design and development of future automated facilities. The job will also require management of engineering projects, including the relevant technical, engineering, and software teams in both the EIU and CE Operations.

Qualifications, Knowledge, and Skills Requirements

• BEng in Mechatronics engineering or equivalent is necessary.
• 7+ years experience in automation engineering and development of new systems in a highly technological environment.
• Understanding of electronic system design.
• Understanding of mechanical system design.
• Understanding of mechatronic system design.
• Experience in electronic initiation and the mining industry is advantageous.
• Excellent analytical skill and problem-solving skills.
• Able to delegate and manage work assignments to appropriate resources.
• Identifies and resolves problems.
• Analyses information skilfully to develop solutions.
• Displays good decisions making skills.
• Excellent time management skills.

Key Responsibilities:

• Identify potential areas of improvement in current manufacturing and/or testing equipment and processes and manage the implementation of replacement equipment/processes.
• Planning, leading, organising, and controlling engineering initiatives/actions to ensure future capacity requirements are met through sustenance of existing systems and execution of new projects.
• Identify new technologies, processes, or standards that can be used in the supply chain of the company to improve and optimise quality and reduce cost in the relevant manufacturing and assembly processes.
• Play a lead role (of a technical nature) in the development of Automation processes across the entire supply chain.
• Provide support to outsourced automation projects: Help create documentation such as a user requirement specification, provide technical assistance, commissioning oversight, integration into current systems and long-term support to manufacturing and automation projects implemented through outsourced companies.
• Provide manufacturing insight to projects where new products are developed or major changes are made to existing products, to influence products or processes early in the product development life cycle.
• Keeping abreast of new product development (especially in R&D) and working closely with the industrializing process through the entire life cycle of development.
• Lead current manufacturing personnel to implement new Automation and Manufacturing standards for projects that will create a framework of how engineering type projects are run within manufacturing, which includes (but are not limited to): Software standards, documentation, project planning framework templates for automation, creating standards for parts and processes, commissioning procedures and sign offs.
• Provide technical support to current legacy equipment and systems.
• Transfer knowledge applicable to company manufacturing processes and systems to other team members to raise the level of technical capabilities of the manufacturing team.
• Constantly develop skills of a technical nature to be an expert in the field of automation.
• Actively work towards bridging the gap between various personnel and departments within the company that contribute to the supply chain of the company by implementing communication strategies and project planning
• integration between departments.