Heavy Mobile Lifting Equipment Foreman

Heavy Mobile Lifting Equipment Foreman

Lotus Africa seeks to recruit a suitably qualified and motivated individual to the post of Heavy Mobile Lifting Foreman at Kayelekera Uranium Mine in Karonga.

Position Summary:

The Heavy Mobile Lifting Equipment Foreman is responsible for the installation, maintenance, inspection, and repair of various mobile lifting systems, including 35 Ton to 200 Ton Cranes,20ton Manitou’s, Cherrypickers, Crane trucks (crawler, mobile), hoists, and industrial material handling equipment. They ensure the safety, compliance, and operational efficiency of this equipment, and logistic. The Lifting Equipment Foreman is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the Lifting Equipment, personnel, and maintenance activities of mobile Lifting equipment. This role ensures that all work is completed safely, efficiently, and in accordance with company standards, and regulatory compliance. The Lifting Equipment Foreman provides leadership, technical support, and operational oversight to ensure service continuity, asset reliability, and team performance. This position requires strong decision-making, logistical planning, and the ability to manage resources and priorities sections and their workforce.

Health Safety, Environment & Radiation:

All employees must ensure total compliance to all Company’s safety policies and relevant sitespecific safety policies (as amended from time to time) including, without limitation, requirements to wear safety equipment whilst in areas requiring such equipment. Ensure all maintenance activities comply with health, safety, and environmental regulations.

Compliant on Safety SOP training that includes but are not limited to:

• Fitness to Work Procedure
• Isolation and Lockout Procedure. Confined Space Entry Procedure.
• Working at Heights Procedure.
• Hot Work Procedure.

Key performance indicators include but are not limited to:

• Team Safety Performance: Achieve a Zero number of safety incidents or near misses, with strict adherence to PPE and worksite safety protocols.
• Team Performance & Productivity: Achieve >95% completion rate of scheduled tasks across all sections with priority emphasis on the mobile fleet and team.
• Work Quality / First-Time Fix Rate: Maintain >90% first-time resolution for service and maintenance tasks.
• Equipment Availability: Maintain ≥ 95% availability of operational vehicles and other equipment as required throughout the 3 sections reporting to the Senior Supervisor.
• Response Time & Downtime: Respond to urgent issues within SLA; minimize equipment or service downtime.
• Job Turnaround Time: Ensure average repair/maintenance completion times meet or exceed set benchmarks.
• Preventative Maintenance Compliance: 100% completion of scheduled services without overdue tasks.
• Client Satisfaction: Consistently positive feedback from stakeholders and clients (target score >4.5/5).
• Team Productivity: Monitor individual and team outputs against daily/weekly work targets.
• Asset & Resource Utilization: Optimize deployment of vehicles, equipment, and personnel with minimal idle time.
• Documentation & Reporting Accuracy: Timely and complete submission of job reports, safety forms, and compliance records.
• Training & Development: Ensure all direct reports are up to date with mandatory training and inductions. Schedule training for subordinates, monitor progress and competency of team members.
• Workshops: Set up workshops to comply with operational needs, safety requirements and standards and ensure to follow good housekeeping practices. Comply to all company standards and implement any rigorized standards if there a gap for additional standards that will allow safe workshop operations.

Planning and Scheduling include but are not limited to:

• Task Scheduling: Schedule daily, weekly, and monthly job orders based on priority, client needs, and asset criticality. Integrate planned preventive maintenance, corrective works, and urgent call outs into the schedule. Balance workload across the team to minimize overtime and travel inefficiencies. Provide input on shutdown planning and coordinate execution of major maintenance events. Assign and prioritize daily work activities to artisans as required, based on job urgency and resource availability. Ensure adequate planning and availability of permits, materials, tools, and labour for all scheduled tasks.
• Resource & Equipment Allocation: Ensure vehicles, tools, and materials are prepared and allocated per the job schedule. Track mobile asset availability and schedule service downtime accordingly. Coordinate deliveries or staging of larger equipment to remote locations as needed.
• Coordination with Other Departments: Liaise with EMS Planning department to align schedules and resources. Communicate clearly with Planning and Superintendent regarding maintenance tasks
• Use of Planning Tools and Systems: Utilize a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) or job scheduling software to Track work orders and task progress, manage asset history and recurring job plans, generate reports and adjust plans in real-time.
• Contingency & Adjustments: Monitor daily progress and adjust schedules in response to weather, access issues, or breakdowns. Maintain flexibility to dispatch resources for high-priority or emergency works. Build contingency time into schedules for unforeseen issues or delays.
• Performance Monitoring: Review completed work against schedule performance (planned vs. actual). Identify trends in delays or resource constraints and implement corrective actions. Provide weekly/monthly reports to management on schedule adherence and productivity.

Maintenance Strategy include but are not limited to:

• Preventative Maintenance: To reduce breakdowns, extend equipment life, and improve service reliability. Develop and enforce PM schedules for mobile plant, utility section, tools, and required materials. Ensure teams complete checklists, inspections, and servicing as per OEM and site standards. Align PM frequency with asset criticality, usage patterns, and environmental conditions
• Corrective Maintenance: To restore functionality quickly and safely in the event of failures or defects. Implement rapid-response protocols for high-priority breakdowns. Empower field teams to carry commonly used spares and diagnostics to resolve issues on-site. Record root causes and initiate follow-up improvements or training where repetitive failures occur.
• Predictive Maintenance: Anticipate failures before they occur using data, reducing reactive work. Use diagnostic tools, mobile app reports, telemetry (if available), and service history to monitor asset trends. Train teams to identify early signs of wear, inefficiency, or abnormal operation during routine work. Apply condition-based triggers to schedule interventions only when truly necessary.
• Maintenance Planning & Coordinating: Optimize labour and other resources to minimize downtime and avoid site disruptions. Use a CMMS or scheduling tool to plan, assign, and track maintenance work. Coordinate with site managers and stakeholders to schedule non-disruptive service windows. Ensure parts, tools, and documentation are pre-staged for efficiency.
• Compliance & Safety: Meet all statutory, environmental, and workplace safety standards. Ensure RCD testing, test and tag, pressure vessel inspections, and fire safety systems are maintained per regulations. Monitor license and training compliance for field electricians, mechanics, HVAC, etc. Ensure all maintenance activities comply with WHS and environmental risk controls.
• Continues Improvement: Drive efficiency and reduce costs through feedback and data analysis. Review job history, downtime reports, and asset performance regularly. Identify high-cost or high-failure equipment and develop improvement plans (e.g., redesign, retraining). Promote field-level feedback to refine procedures, checklists, and training needs. Carry out post-repair inspections to ensure all work meets company and regulatory standards. Lead fault-finding activities and provide technical input for root cause analysis (RCM / 5-Why). Identify opportunities to improve reliability and performance of equipment.
• Materials: Maintain optimal stock levels of critical materials & parts and ensure proper storage and issue records. Enforce strict housekeeping and organizing skills to store, ease of access for routine fitness inspections & stock take sessions and storing in a safe manner not to create any form of risks (e.g. fire hazards, falling objects from shelves etc.).

Work Order Job Card Compliance include but are not limited to:

• Ensure all team members understand and execute work order compliance correctly.
• Validate that job cards include accurate fault descriptions, time taken, materials used, and corrective actions performed.
• Conduct routine audits of job card data for accuracy and completeness.
• Provide feedback to the team based on job card analysis to drive performance improvement.
• Ensure all details are captured on the job card, signed off and returned to the Supervisor.

 Core Competencies/Skills:

• Safety Management: Promoting and enforcing a zero-harm safety culture.
• Safety Orientation: Strong understanding of workshop safety procedures, risk assessments, and PPE usage.
• Leadership: Ability to lead, coach, and develop a team of artisans and assistants to achieve performance targets. Effective delegation, conflict resolution, and performance management capabilities. Proven ability to lead multi-trade teams across dispersed or remote sites.
• Technical Expertise: Advanced knowledge of lifting equipment, hydraulics, engine, transmission, suspension, electronics, diagnostics. Skilled in reading and interpreting technical drawings, schematics, and maintenance manuals. Familiarity with OEM specifications and preventive maintenance protocols. Familiarity with GPS, telemetry, or maintenance monitoring systems.
• Problem-Solving: Ability to diagnose complex equipment issues, utility infrastructure and make timely, effective decisions. Root cause analysis proficiency to prevent recurring issues making use of RCA and 5 Why tools.
• Time Management: Skilled in prioritizing tasks, delegating effectively, and managing workloads in a fast-paced environment. Roster management, task allocation, and shift coverage for workshop and utilities staff.
• Planning & Organization: Effective prioritization and tracking of job cards, service requests, and work orders. Competence in work scheduling, resource allocation, and prioritization of maintenance tasks.
• Communication: Clear and professional communication with team members, other departments. Accurate maintenance records, compliance logs, and shift handovers. Ability to manage inter-departmental or team issues diplomatically.
• Decision-Making: Timely and effective problem-solving under pressure.
• Teamwork: Works collaboratively with fabricators, engineers, inspectors, QA/QC personnel and planners. Willingness to work in a team or independently when needed.
• Mentorship: Coaching and skills development of junior team members.
• Quality Assurance: High attention to detail with a commitment to delivering precision workmanship. Knowledge of quality control procedures and continuous improvement practices.
• Customer Service Orientation: Professional approach when dealing with internal clients, external clients and prioritizing company needs.
• Adaptability & Initiative: Comfortable working in dynamic environments with changing priorities. Proactive approach to identifying improvement opportunities and leading implementation. Able to manage overlapping maintenance and utility priorities. Makes effective decisions under pressure, especially during breakdowns or outages.
• Systems Knowledge: Proficiency in using CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management Systems), Microsoft Office Suite and diagnostic tools.

Qualifications/Experience:

• MSCE Certificate or equivalent or Higher Education.
• Qualified Diesel Mechanic Trade Certificate or equivalent from a recognised institution.
• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in a Lifting equipment & mining environment and 5 years in a Mechanical Supervisor role.
• Previous track record of managing a Lifting equipment section
• Valid driver’s license.

Personal Qualities/Behavioural Traits:

• Consistent demonstration of Lotus Core Values.
• Performance Orientation, strongly motivated, leads by example and maintains a high work standard.
• Advanced communications, supervisory, mentoring and training skills.
• Decisive leader, who collaborates actively
• Strong conceptual thinking ability.
• Resilience and Resourcefulness.
• High level of interpersonal and negotiating skills.

How to apply

Interested applicants should submit an application, copies of certificates, and a CV with contact details for at least three professional referees to lal.jobs@lotusmalawi.com or submit by hand at Lotus Africa Limited offices at Kayelekera Mine. Applicants must include their name and the position they are applying for in the title of all documents.

The deadline for receiving applications is April 24, 2026. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Lotus Africa is an equal opportunity employer; therefore, women are encouraged to apply.