Maintenance Manager- Refrigeration

Key Responsibilities
Team & Technician Management

• Lead, supervise and develop a team of refrigeration technicians, assistants and a service coordinator.
• Allocate jobs to technicians based on skill level, location and workload; ensure even utilisation across the team.
• Run the daily morning toolbox talk, weekly planning meeting and monthly one-on-ones.
• Approve timesheets, overtime, leave and field allowances; manage attendance and discipline in line with company policy and the Kenya Employment Act.
• Identify training needs and coordinate technical upskilling (refrigerant handling, electrical safety,
• Enforce the use of PPE and adherence and food-industry hygiene requirements on every site.

Planned Maintenance & Job Scheduling

• Develop and maintain the annual Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) calendar for every contracted client and site.
• Issue weekly job cards, route plans and spare-parts lists to technicians; ensure jobs are closed out with completed reports, photos and client sign-off.
• Manage the 24/7 breakdown call-out roster and ensure response and repair times meet contractual SLAs.
• Track service KPIs in the CMMS / job-card system: PPM completion rate, mean time to respond (MTTR), mean time to repair, callback rate.
• Coordinate with the projects/installation team on commissioning hand-overs and warranty work.

Quotations, Estimating & Commercial Management

• Prepare accurate technical quotations for breakdown repairs, retrofits, equipment replacements and PPM contracts (annual, bi-annual or quarterly).
• Cost jobs correctly: refrigerant, parts, consumables, labour hours, transport, scaffolding/access, sub-contractor input and a defensible margin.
• Negotiate prices and lead times with local suppliers and overseas OEMs (compressors, condensing units, controls, refrigerant gases).
• Convert quotations into signed jobs and track quotation-to-order conversion rate.
• Support the finance team with progress invoicing, retention release and debt collection on maintenance contracts.

Client & Expectation Management

• Act as the primary point of contact for all maintenance-contract clients - supermarkets, dairies,horticulture exporters, hotels, hospitals, ice plants, fishing/cold-chain operators.
• Carry out site visits, quarterly contract review meetings and annual service reports for each key account.
• Set realistic expectations on response times, lead times for imported parts, and the cost of repairs versus replacement.
• Resolve client complaints and escalations promptly; investigate root cause and implement corrective action to prevent recurrence.
• Identify and pursue contract-renewal and up-sell opportunities (additional sites, retrofits, energy-efficiency upgrades, refrigerant retrofits away from R22).

Spares, Stores & Procurement

• Maintain a healthy stock of fast-moving spares (contactors, fan motors, expansion valves, filter driers, common compressors, controls).
• Plan refrigerant procurement (e.g. R134a, R404A, R407C, R290, R744/CO2) in line with Kenya's NEMA Ozone-Depleting Substances regulations and the company's F-gas / refrigerant log.
• Approve local purchase requisitions within delegated limits; track stock variance and obsolete stock.

Reporting, Compliance & Continuous Improvement

• Submit a monthly maintenance report to the General Manager covering jobs completed, revenue,gross margin, KPIs, HSE incidents, and key client issues.
• Ensure all work complies with manufacturer specifications, Kenyan electrical regulations, food-safety standards (HACCP where applicable) and environmental/refrigerant rules.
• Drive continuous improvement: standard service checklists, technician performance dashboards,spares standardisation, energy-efficiency proposals.

Requirements
Education & Certification

• Diploma or Higher Diploma in Refrigeration & Air Conditioning, Mechanical Engineering,
• Electromechanical Engineering or equivalent.
• Government Trade Test / NITA certification in Refrigeration & Air Conditioning.
• Certified refrigerant handling / safe-handling-of-refrigerants training.
• Valid Kenyan driving licence (Class B/C/E).
• Certificate of Good Conduct.

Experience

• Minimum 3 years' hands-on experience in commercial and industrial refrigeration, with at least 3 years in a supervisory or service-management role.
• Demonstrable experience working for a refrigeration contractor or service provider in Kenya or the wider East African region.
• Proven experience servicing cold rooms, blast freezers, supermarket racks/condensing units, ice machines and chillers; ammonia (NH3) or CO2 (R744) experience is a strong advantage.
• Experience preparing and winning technical quotations and managing maintenance-contract clients.

Technical Knowledge

• Strong understanding of the vapour-compression cycle, refrigerant properties, electrical controls,PLC/temperature controllers and basic refrigeration design.
• Comfortable reading P&IDs, single-line electrical drawings and OEM manuals.
• Familiar with energy-efficiency, leak-detection and refrigerant-recovery best practice.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong leadership and people-management skills; able to coach and hold technicians accountable.
• Commercially aware - confident with quotations, costing, margins and basic P&L.
• Excellent client-handling and communication skills in English and Kiswahili (written and spoken).
• Well-organised; able to plan ahead and juggle multiple sites, jobs and priorities under pressure.
• Computer literate: MS Excel, Word, Outlook, and a CMMS / job-card system.
• High personal integrity; honest reporting on parts, labour hours and refrigerant usage.