What Does a Maintenance Technician Do?

A maintenance technician keeps a plant running: inspecting equipment, finding faults, repairing or replacing what has failed and servicing what has not failed yet. In British plants the same job goes by other names, among them maintenance engineer, maintenance fitter and multi-skilled engineer. In Spain it is usually a técnico de mantenimiento. The title tells you less than the trade does, so this article sets out what the role covers and what to say when you ask for one.

What a maintenance technician does day to day

• Inspects equipment on a round or to a schedule, and records what turns up.
• Diagnoses faults. The work is finding out why a pump, gearbox, conveyor or compressor has stopped or is running badly, ideally without stripping the whole machine.
• Repairs and replaces parts such as bearings, seals, couplings, belts and valves.
• Carries out planned servicing: lubrication, alignment and adjustment. Planned preventative maintenance is mostly this.
• Takes condition readings, such as vibration or temperature, where the plant uses predictive maintenance.
• Works from drawings, manuals and diagrams, and under the site’s isolation and permit-to-work rules.
• Reports what was found and what was done, so the next person starts from facts.

Technician, engineer or fitter?

Job titles do not carry across plants or countries. In some British plants a maintenance engineer plans and manages the work and a technician or fitter does it. In others the titles mean the same thing. A job advert in Spain for a técnico de mantenimiento can mean a mechanical fitter, an electrical technician or someone who covers both.

So decide which trade you need before you ask:

• Mechanical: rotating equipment, pumps, gearboxes, pipework and structures.
• Electrical: motors, panels and controls.
• Multi-skilled: both, usually with some fault-finding on automated lines, which may include PLCs.

Asking for “a maintenance technician” and getting an electrician when you wanted a fitter is an easy mismatch to make.

Skills and qualifications

On site, what counts is fault-finding in practice, a firm grounding in the trade, safe working habits and the ability to work from a drawing. A good technician narrows down a fault quickly because they have seen it before.

Qualifications differ between countries and do not map one to one onto British ones, so ask what the person has done and on what kind of equipment, rather than trying to match certificates. In Spain a common route is vocational training in electromechanical or industrial maintenance. Many sites also ask for safety training, often shown through the Tarjeta Profesional del Metal (TPM).

When the repair involves welding

Many maintenance jobs are not purely maintenance. A worn section of pipework has to be cut out and replaced, a cracked support has to be repaired, a nozzle on a tank has to be rewelded. A technician who is excellent at diagnosing a gearbox is not necessarily a coded welder. If the job includes welding, say so in the brief and ask for welders alongside the technician, qualified for the material and the position.

What to specify when you bring one in

1. The equipment: types and makes, so the match is on the kit and not on a title.
2. The tasks: scheduled servicing, breakdown repair or work during a shutdown.
3. Dates and hours: start date, length of the job and shift pattern.
4. Your systems: whether the technician has to log work in your maintenance system, and in which language.
5. Site rules: induction, isolation procedure, permits and personal protective equipment.
6. Documentation: whether manuals and drawings are available on site.

When it makes sense to bring in contract technicians

A shutdown, when you need more people than you employ for a fixed window. A planned overhaul. A gap while you recruit. A one-off installation.

The daily upkeep of the plant is a different matter, and your own team is the better answer. The sensible split is to keep the people who know your plant and bring in extra hands for the peaks. Planned work helps, because it can be booked ahead, while a breakdown cannot. Our article on contract labour covers how bringing people in works in practice.

Where we come in

We provide technicians for industrial maintenance in Spain and Portugal. Tell us the equipment, the tasks and the dates, and we will say whether we can cover it. Contact us.