Job Description Summary:
The Planer Technician serves as the work center owner and primary operator for Timberlab’s planning operations. This position is expected to personally operate, set up, troubleshoot, optimize, and maintain planning and sizing equipment while developing operating standards and training operators. The Technician owns equipment performance, dimensional quality, surface finish quality, tooling management, uptime, throughput, and continuous improvement within the work center.
Job Description:
Operate and maintain planers, sizing equipment, material handling systems, and associated production equipment.
Act as the primary operator of critical production equipment during startup, commissioning, ramp-up, and early production operations.
Perform planer knife grinding, sharpening, balancing, and maintenance activities in accordance with manufacturer recommendations and Timberlab standards.
Establish and maintain tooling standards to optimize surface quality, dimensional consistency, equipment uptime, and production efficiency.
Troubleshoot planer-related quality issues, including dimensional variation, surface finish defects, tear-out, adhesive bonding issues, and tooling performance concerns.
Lead machine setup, startups, shutdowns, changeovers, and production troubleshooting activities.
Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, startup procedures, work instructions, and best practices.
Monitor production performance, downtime, quality, recovery, and throughput metrics and implement corrective actions.
Coordinate with Production, Quality, Maintenance, and Engineering teams to improve equipment performance and process reliability.
Support continuous improvement initiatives focused on safety, quality, productivity, and waste reduction.
Ensure compliance with all safety procedures, including LOTO, machine guarding, and PPE requirements.
Cross-train across Finger Jointing, Planing, RF Press Operations, and other production work centers to support operational coverage.
Minimum 2 years of manufacturing, lumber, wood products, engineered wood products, or industrial production experience.
Experience operating planers, sizing equipment, including planer setup, knife changes, tooling maintenance, and production troubleshooting.
