My maintenance journey #6: the food industry

Mobility Work highlights industrial maintenance jobs and their sometimes atypical careers. We dedicated this new episode to Erwan, who works as a maintenance technician for a large group specializing in catering and food.

Erwan paints an unbiased portrait of vocational education in France and explains to us that it was initially not intended for industrial maintenance... Before realizing that this very promising sector offered very varied opportunities to the most motivated!

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your background?

My name is Erwan and I have been working as a maintenance technician in a group in the food sector for three years now.

As for my academic career, I initially followed a mechanical engineering baccalaureate, but I quickly realized that this training did not match my profile and what I wanted to do. Once I got my bachelor's degree, on the advice of one of my professors, I turned to a BTS in industrial maintenance, in continuing education.

Industrial maintenance was a real discovery for me, I was immediately very interested in this field and I understood how versatile it was. After my two years of BTS, I did not really feel ready to enter the workforce, and I therefore preferred to turn to a professional license in work-study maintenance services management, which I took in St Nazaire and which I obtained about ten years ago. This training offered very interesting future prospects.

After my studies, I had the chance to have a lot of professional experiences, which allowed me to further diversify my profile. I carried out temporary assignments, joined an ice cream factory, another specialized in salting and charcuterie, before joining my current company, therefore as a maintenance technician.

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You initially chose the field of industrial maintenance a bit by default, what prompted you to continue on this path?

I quickly realized that the tasks were very varied, that the working days were never the same. Teams must constantly rack their brains to think about improving machines, to troubleshoot equipment as quickly as possible, to prevent faults...

Thanks to Mobility Work mobile CMMS, maintenance teams manage their maintenance plans and their calendar to prioritize their tasks and organize their days.

We are actually under positive stress every time we need to do a repair, which creates a certain amount of excitement! We feel a form of tension since you have to be able to get the machines going again as quickly as possible. It is in fact a very complete sector of activity, which takes me through a few states during the same day.

Have you noticed a gap between learning at school and learning in the field afterwards?

I would be tempted to say that what you learn at school is useful but does not always prepare you very well for the job market, the teaching is not sufficiently in line with the reality on the ground. For example, over a bachelor's year, no less than 56 subjects are studied. I have obviously acquired knowledge and benefited from an openness to the professional world, but I still have some reservations in this regard.

I consider to have built an experience on my own, since the only windows I had on the job market, during my BTS, were two internships lasting a few weeks. I was a bit lost and did not feel ready to enter the world of work, that's why I wanted to go for a bachelor's degree, in addition to a work-study program. In fact, I saw a fairly marked gap between theory and practice, and I felt that I did not have enough experience.

At the same time, however, we often hear that the industrial maintenance sector is struggling to hire, that recruiters deplore a shortage of candidates...

There is indeed a very strong need for maintenance technicians: I think that recruiters are therefore very attentive and ready to trust people who may have less experience but who have a good mentality, who are resilient, who are logical... I think that personality is very important in this profession.

I can't really explain the shortage of candidates because the industry is not doing too badly. Perhaps the students are not sufficiently oriented towards these fields... For example, I often heard, when I was in school, that this sector was aging. I preferred to tell myself that it was synonymous with a quick hire in the end! Once a certain maturity has been acquired, we realize that the industrial maintenance sector has a lot to offer.

Professional sectors, factory work or the maintenance environment in general may also suffer from a rather negative image. Students are not being encouraged enough to turn to these professions.

So what do you think of this tarnished image of the sector?

The industry itself is relatively sustainable, for example, I am lucky with the company I work for, which invests and is seriously turning to 4.0 forms of maintenance.

From my point of view as a hands-on man, I actually think that companies must understand the importance of industrial maintenance and invest in new machines, new parts... It is a total strategy, which decision-makers must take advantage of if they want to accelerate rates.

What advice would you give to those who would like to move into an industrial maintenance sector?

I would tell them that there is space! Industrial maintenance has the advantage of offering a wide range of development perspectives. The sector is looking for motivated people, ready to invest and integrate into teams, and who can then easily evolve within the factory. If a person starts out as a maintenance technician, they can easily switch to production, for example. It is an open environment that does not know routine.

Thanks to Erwan for his testimony! To be alerted to our next article on maintenance jobs and training, follow us on our social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter).

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