In industrial maintenance, the technology is moving fast: online condition monitoring is becoming standard, AI pilots are multiplying, and data is everywhere. Yet one truth remains constant.

Reliability is built by people. Maroua Ouerghemmi, Senior Manager for Great Britain and Nordics at Coca Cola Europacific Partners CCEP, has built her career at the intersection of strategy and shop floor reality. Her message is clear: the future of maintenance will be won not only with smarter tools, but with trust, clarity, and the ability to translate big ambitions into daily habits.
Maroua Ouerghemmi did not enter maintenance by accident. She entered it through numbers.

“I love mathematics,” she says. For her, maintenance was never just about repairing what breaks. It was about understanding why things break, when they are likely to break next, and what decisions can change that outcome.

She graduated as an instrumentation and industrial maintenance engineer, specializing in maintenance management and maintenance engineering. Her studies began in Tunisia, and her graduation took her to Bahrain. From there, she joined APM Terminals as a reliability engineer in a harbor environment, at a time when the concept of reliability was still gaining traction in many organizations. Her role was to help build a reliability function within the maintenance department, shaping a new way of working around data, structure, and prevention.

Then came a defining opportunity. In 2015, APM Terminals built the first fully automated terminal in the Netherlands, and Maroua was asked to move there to implement reliability initiatives in that high-tech environment. In 2016, she relocated as a senior reliability engineer, spending two and a half years translating reliability theory into real-world routines inside an automated operation where the margin for error is thin and the pace is unforgiving.

From the Netherlands, her career continued to Sweden, where she joined Mondelēz at Marabou Chocolate. She started in reliability, then moved into leadership as maintenance manager, leading a team of around 25 people and taking responsibility for additional functions such as the storeroom. Later, she moved to Nynas refinery in Nynäshamn, Sweden, as a reliability and maintenance manager. Six months before the interview, she took on her current role at Coca Cola Europacific Partners CCEP, as Senior Manager for Great Britain and Nordics, supporting multiple sites in their journey from reactive maintenance toward a proactive, reliability-driven way of working.

Across industries and countries, her path has been fast, varied, and unusually rich in perspective. She calls it a privilege. It also shaped the way she sees the gap that often exists between operational reality and strategic ambition.

Over the years, she has worked closely with maintenance teams and leadership groups alike. That dual exposure, she says, gives her a clear understanding of the operational challenges on the shop floor and the strategic gap that can appear higher up. Her job today is to close that gap. Not by writing strategies, but by making them executable.

“My role is really to translate strategy into execution. The mission is to help sites move away from firefighting and into a more structured, proactive approach. That translation work is where many transformations succeed or fail.”

In Maroua’s view, most companies already have strong ambitions. They talk about reliability, performance, and continuous improvement. They may even have clear corporate strategies. But the hardest part is not the vision. The hardest part is turning it into daily behavior for the people who keep the plant running.

“It’s not enough to have a structure, to have the strategy and all the theoretical part,” she says. “What I enjoy is how I can translate that into execution.”

That translation requires patience, and it requires communication that respects the reality of maintenance work. A new process is not a slide deck. It is a new habit. And habits do not change because someone announces them. They change because the people doing the work understand why the change matters, what it means for them, and how it improves their daily life.

Maroua often describes herself as a coach. She enjoys putting structure in place, helping teams become more data-driven, and building processes that make work clearer and more manageable. The satisfaction comes when she can see tangible change, step by step, in how a team plans, prioritizes, and executes.

This is where her leadership philosophy becomes practical. She emphasizes trust, flexibility, and empathy. She believes leaders must invest time in understanding the people they work with, adapting to different behaviors, and building a relationship strong enough to carry change through resistance.

“People are very different,” she says. “It’s important to adapt.”

Empathy is central to her approach, even though she once questioned it. Early in her leadership journey, she worried empathy might be a weakness, something others could take advantage of. She thought she needed to become tougher to be taken seriously. Over time, she realized the opposite. In maintenance, empathy can be a competitive advantage.

It makes a leader approachable. It makes it easier to connect with technicians and engineers. It makes it easier to get honest information from the shop floor, including feedback about what is working and what is not. And without that feedback, reliability programs remain theoretical.

“Whatever strategy you want to implement, if the people on the shop floor don’t adapt it, you won’t get any results,” she says.

Her experience across cultures has reinforced this belief. She has worked in the Middle East and across Europe, and she has learned that maintenance strategies are often universal, but implementation is not. The “what” can be standardized. The “how” must be adapted.

In global organizations, there is a natural desire to standardize. Common KPIs, common systems, common maintenance planning approaches. Maroua supports this. Standards create a reference point, a shared language, and a way to compare progress. But she is equally clear that routines must fit local reality.

Site size matters. Team composition matters. Production communication matters. Organizational maturity matters. A site that is early in its reliability journey cannot absorb the same level of standardization as a mature site without creating frustration and failure. Pushing a standard too rigidly, too fast, can backfire.

“We often push sites to just follow standards, but maybe on terms of maturity they are not there yet,” she says. “And then they fail.”
So, the balance is to keep the standard as the direction, while allowing each site to build its plan based on where it is today. This is not a compromise. It is change management. And change management, in maintenance, is always about people, she says.

That human dimension becomes even more visible when the conversation turns to diversity. Maroua has often been the only woman in maintenance teams across different countries. She acknowledges that the experience can be different. In many environments, a man in a leadership position may receive trust by default. A woman may have to earn it first, sometimes facing skepticism or subtle testing.

Her advice is grounded and direct. Do not overdo it. Do not fall into the trap of trying to prove you know everything. Do not lose yourself by performing a version of leadership you think others expect.

“Be yourself,” she says. “You don’t have to know everything. If you are in the position, you are there for a reason. Trust that. Focus on the job. Work with the team. Let results and consistency build credibility over time.”

When asked about challenges in the maintenance sector, Maroua points to a familiar and persistent issue: maintenance is still too often viewed as a cost center. In many leadership conversations, maintenance appears as a budget line to be reduced, not as a value driver to be strengthened. She believes this mindset must change, and she believes maintenance leaders have a role in changing it.

Maroua thinks that the language needs to evolve.

“Maintenance spending must be framed as investment, linked directly to business outcomes. Reliability is not an abstract technical goal. It affects productivity, quality, safety, and delivery performance. It reduces unplanned downtime and stabilizes operations. It protects assets and extends their life, and it makes planning possible.”

But to make that case convincingly, maintenance must be measured wisely. Here Maroua is critical of two common traps. Some organizations track too many KPIs, creating confusion and diluting focus. Others track the wrong KPIs, leading teams to optimize for metrics that do not drive real improvement.

Her recommendation is to start with a few critical KPIs, with clear baselines and targets, and then link them to daily activities so the team understands what they are doing and why. In her view, the focus should always cover people, process, and cost.

Among the most important reliability measures, she highlights MTBF, mean time between failures, as a core indicator of machine reliability and the effectiveness of maintenance practices. She also emphasizes MTTR, mean time to repair, as a measure of team efficiency, skill levels, and the time it takes to perform tasks, which can guide improvement efforts. And she stresses budget tracking, not as a cost-cutting exercise, but to understand where money is spent and whether it is invested wisely.

From there, the conversation naturally moves to digital transformation. Maintenance is already changing. Online monitoring for vibrations has been in place for years in many sites, though maturity varies widely. Now, AI pilots for predictive maintenance are emerging across industry.

Maroua sees both opportunity and risk. The opportunity is clear. AI can connect data sources that have long been fragmented. It can centralize machine history, OEM recommendations, previous failures, and maintenance actions into one platform. It can accelerate troubleshooting, support root cause analysis, and improve prediction and decision-making.

She mentions a pilot initiative focused on centralizing machine data into a single platform where engineers can quickly access a more complete operational picture. For maintenance teams that have long struggled with missing data, scattered records, and limited visibility, this represents a significant shift.

But she is careful not to oversell it. AI is not yet perfectly accurate. Data must be validated, tools must be trained, and perhaps most importantly, people must be prepared.

“There is data everywhere,” she says. “The challenge is not collecting more. The challenge is integrating it, translating it into actionable decisions, and embedding it into routines.”

She also acknowledges the human fear that comes with rapid technological change. People wonder what it means for their jobs. They worry about being replaced. They feel the pace of change is faster than their ability to adapt. In her view, organizations must address this proactively by planning skill development now, not later.

The future of maintenance, in her eyes, is not a future without people. It is a future where people work differently, with new tools and new competencies, and where the industry must invest in upskills to keep pace with technology.

Looking ahead five to ten years, Maroua hopes to see three shifts. A more diverse maintenance workforce, a more widespread adoption of AI and online monitoring that reduces reactive firefighting, and a broader recognition that maintenance is a value-added contributor to business performance, not a department that simply “drains money.”

Her own ambition is to keep learning and to contribute back to the maintenance and reliability community. Early in her career, platforms and publications helped her understand the field, learn from others, and find direction. Now she wants to be part of that knowledge loop, sharing experience and helping the next generation.

For young engineers entering maintenance, her advice is practical and optimistic. Be open-minded.

“Be patient. Reach out to people and ask questions, try new initiatives and approaches. Do not be afraid to fail, because failure is part of learning in maintenance. And always keep the core goal in focus: improving machine performance.”

Three practical takeaways from Maroua Ouerghemmi

1. Strategy only matters if it becomes a daily habit The success of reliability programs depends on whether maintenance teams can translate them into simple, repeatable actions that make sense in their daily work.

2. Standardize the “what”, adapt the “how” Global KPIs and systems create alignment, but local routines must reflect site maturity, culture, and organizational setup to avoid resistance and failure.

3. Digital transformation is a people project AI and monitoring can unlock huge value, but only if companies invest in skills, validation, and change management so teams can actually use the data to make better decisions.

Text: Mia Heiskanen Photos: Maroua Ouerghemmi archive

When Oskari Tarkkila started at OC Paroc Parainen plant, it was meant to be a summer job. A year later, he is a Maintenance Engineer coordinating daily work, planning longer-term maintenance programs and helping lead people and contractors in a demanding industrial environment.

Tarkkila studied chemical engineering at Åbo Akademi University and graduated this spring. He joined the company the previous May and completed his master’s thesis alongside the job, an applied study on how different parameters affect the performance and adjustment of vibrating stone feeders. “I’m happy with the outcome. I did it alongside work and stayed on the schedule I set for myself,” he says.

The transition from student to full-time engineer was accelerated by the variety of tasks he encountered early on. During the summer he also covered for both the mechanical maintenance supervisor and the electrical supervisor during holidays, giving him a broad view of how maintenance decisions ripple through production, safety and resourcing. “There’s a lot of problem-solving and being in between electrical and mechanical maintenance. Sometimes you have your own projects, and there’s a wide scale of things on your desk,” Tarkkila says.

His role includes daily task prioritisation, long-term planning, onboarding of contractors, running safety moments, and handling people-related topics such as shift coverage and holidays. The biggest challenge, he says, is the unexpected: equipment failures that disrupt plans and require calm, fast decisions. But those moments are also where the job becomes most rewarding. “We’re prepared and we can respond and get the line running again. And it’s really rewarding when you get it fixed,” he says.

For Tarkkila, the steepest learning curve has been mental rather than technical: staying composed while juggling multiple priorities. “It’s been about having many things going on at the same time and staying calm under pressure,” he says.

At OC Paroc, that pressure is balanced by a clear hierarchy of values. Safety is not presented as a separate program; it is embedded in daily routines and reinforced continuously. Tarkkila describes safety culture as something that must be actively built because it does not sustain itself. “Safety is always number one, but it doesn’t happen by itself. It takes constant effort,” he says. “We’re never in such a hurry that we would compromise safety. The priority is that everyone goes home in good condition.”

The environment makes that mindset essential. A stone wool plant with over 100 employees combines heavy traffic and lifting operations with hot surfaces and complex equipment, conditions that require constant situational awareness. Tarkkila notes that many of the risks discussed in generic safety training are present simultaneously in this kind of facility, which makes disciplined behaviour and clear practices critical.

Maintenance capability is built through both internal teamwork and selective use of contractors. The site’s mechanical maintenance team includes day-shift mechanics and plant technicians, supported by roles such as storekeeper, an electrical engineer and maintenance leadership. Contractors are used either as extra capacity or for specialised tasks. For a young engineer, this means learning to lead across different groups early, own employees, shift-based roles and external partners.

Because Paroc is part of a larger international Owens Corning group, knowledge sharing extends beyond the site. Tarkkila says collaboration with other factories is frequent, especially when troubleshooting: if a system is not working well in one location, teams reach out to peers elsewhere to learn how they solved similar issues. The exchange is often case-by-case, but it creates a practical network for spreading good practices.

From the HR perspective, onboarding and early development are designed to be local and hands-on while still aligned with broader company principles. HR Generalist Tuovi Helin says new employees are primarily trained locally because the needs of each site are best understood on the ground. “Onboarding happens mainly locally. Safety is the top priority, and we make sure people understand the site and safe ways of working,” Helin says.

For summer employees, the approach is team-based: a supervisor owns the onboarding, while an experienced colleague acts as a day-to-day mentor. New hires typically shadow for the first weeks and gradually take on tasks independently. Feedback is collected continuously to identify gaps and improve the process. “We gather feedback all the time, from the person being onboarded and from the person doing the onboarding, so we can see what’s working and what needs more support,” Helin says.

Summer recruitment is also a strategic talent pipeline. Helin notes that the Parainen site typically hires over 10 summer employees annually, with one or two roles in maintenance. The company uses its own career channels, LinkedIn and university recruitment events to reach candidates. In her experience, interest has been strong. “We’ve had a good number of applicants, and we’ve been able to reach the target groups we want,” Helin says.

In an industry where reliability and safety are inseparable, the story of a young engineer moving quickly from summer hire to a key coordination role highlights a broader point: maintenance organisations can attract and retain new talent when they offer meaningful responsibility, structured onboarding and a culture that treats safety as a shared daily practice not just a compliance requirement.

When tankers cannot safely navigate the Strait of Hormuz, fuel prices rise and public anxiety grows. This often results in long lines at the fuel pump and fears of shortages quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The reality is that critical infrastructure will always be a target because those seeking to disrupt, cause harm or force change — militarily, economically, politically or socially — understand both its physical and psychological impact.

Regulating for resilience: While headlines focus on political debates over who should keep shipping lanes open, critical infrastructure organisations and governments are moving forward with new physical and cyber safeguards to protect sites closer to home.

Weeks before recent events in the Middle East, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its 2025 review outlining major actions taken to strengthen national cyber and physical defences. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive will take effect across the EU in July, with member states such as Germany advancing early through its KRITIS framework to establish a model for CER compliance.

These initiatives extend to energy supplies, from power stations (gas, electricity and nuclear), refineries and pipelines, substations, water treatment facilities, data centres and food production. And while increased investment in renewable energy may reduce reliance on overseas supply, wind and solar farms remain potential targets as well. Fortunately, the likelihood of missile strikes on critical infrastructure is low in many regions. But the risks of trespassing, espionage, sabotage, terrorism and protest activity are far higher.

Protection and detection: Security levels vary widely across critical infrastructure.  A large power station may employ live-monitored CCTV, video analytics, alarms, sensors, access control, fencing and other heightened defences. In contrast, a rural electrical substation may rely on a single unmonitored camera, a perimeter fence and a basic alarm.

Despite significant annual investment, organisations often lack the ability to connect these systems. Without integrated systems, real-time situational awareness — understanding what happened, how it began, what is occurring now and how to respond — is nearly impossible. Operators typically manage large portfolios of sites spread over vast and often challenging geographies. Only by integrating siloed systems and linking multiple sites into a centralized operation can true enterprise-wide visibility be achieved.

For example, a perimeter breach at a substation might initially appear to be an isolated incident. But combined with a similar incident at another site, it could indicate the start of a coordinated attack.

A centralized insight layer (often referred to as a PSIM — Physical Security Information Management system) ensures incidents are detected using all available resources. A perimeter alarm — triggered by a steel fence sensor or a 3D LiDAR system — initiates an alert and the video management system automatically displays the relevant live camera feed and recent footage. Operators can follow predefined workflows to lock down areas, dispatch first responders or initiate evacuations. Automated actions, such as playing recorded announcements over public address systems, can also occur.

Rapid, effective response is essential for safety, security and ensuring uninterrupted service to customers.

Resilient supply chains require security measures that function from the source to the point of service. Recent geopolitical and environmental events, such as severe flooding, have shown how quickly disruption to one link can trigger widespread consequences. However, critical infrastructure operators can strengthen resilience by leveraging the robust systems they already have, improving their ability to detect and respond to threats.

About Octave

Octave provides mission-critical software that empowers organizations to make informed decisions across every stage of the asset lifecycle — Design, Build, Operate and Protect — where performance, safety, and reliability are non-negotiable and failure is not an option. Turning complex operational data into actionable intelligence, Octave connects expertise, real-world conditions and enterprise-scale insight to improve performance, resilience and incident response where it matters most. Octave has approximately 7,200 employees in 45 countries.

Text and Photo: Andreas Beerbaum

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and escalating conflict involving Iran have disrupted global fossil fuel flows, tightening oil and gas markets and pushing energy prices sharply higher. The situation echoes the 2022 energy crisis, when Europe rapidly replaced Russian pipeline gas to stabilize electricity supply.

This time, however, the response is seen faster and more structural. According to WindEurope, governments across the EU and UK are accelerating renewable deployment and grid investments to reduce exposure to geopolitical risk.

Wind already supplies around 20% of Europe’s electricity, but electricity still accounts for less than a quarter of total final energy consumption, leaving the system still heavily exposed to imported fossil fuels.

Investment in wind power is rising in Europe, with around €45 billion committed to new wind energy projects in 2025. This signals a structural shift in Europe’s energy system rather than a temporary adjustment.

The energy transition is increasing system complexity and contributing to greater price volatility. Electricity markets face higher variability due to renewable integration, while fossil fuel prices remain highly unstable, with oil experiencing swings of 20–30% and gas markets fluctuating daily (International Energy Agency). The result is upward pressure on consumer energy bills, renewed inflationary risks, and heightened uncertainty for energy-intensive industries such as steel, chemicals, and manufacturing.

Even short-term instability carries a measurable cost. The non-profit Beyond Fossil Fuels estimated that just three days of gas price volatility cost Europe approximately €620 million.

This volatility reinforces a core structural issue: despite rapid renewable expansion, Europe’s energy system remains highly sensitive to fossil fuel price shocks.

As governments frame energy policy increasingly as a matter of national security, operational realities on the ground are changing just as quickly.

Former Belgian Energy Minister and newly appointed CEO of WindEurope Tinne van der Straeten described the shift bluntly: “This crisis is not a one off. It is becoming a structural feature of the energy system.”

Germany and the UK are responding with accelerated wind deployment, hydrogen strategies, and faster permitting for infrastructure. But behind these strategic moves, a quieter transformation is underway in how energy assets are operated and maintained.

Erwin Bovyn, O&M National Director at Luminus NV, notes that the energy transition is fundamentally reshaping maintenance conditions across the generation fleet.

“Renewable assets are increasingly exposed to curtailment, negative pricing, grid congestion, and environmental constraints,” Bovyn explains.

“This leads to more dynamic operating patterns, including more frequent start-stop cycles.”

These operational shifts are not neutral. “They introduce new mechanical stresses, particularly in flexible gas-fired generation units but we also monitor our wind turbines,” Bovyn says.
In wind assets, more frequent cycling increases fatigue loads on key components such as gearboxes, blades, bearings, and generators. In thermal plants, repeated ramping and load-following duties increase thermal stress in turbines, generators and heat-recovery systems.

The operational profile of Europe’s energy system is moving away from steady-state operation toward highly variable dispatch. This introduces failure modes that traditional maintenance strategies were not designed to detect early.

Bovyn highlights the implications clearly: “More dynamic operating patterns can trigger previously unseen failure mechanisms, requiring stronger condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, and advanced tools such as digital twins powered by AI and machine learning.”

At the same time, conventional generation remains essential. Gas-fired plants are increasingly used as system stabilizers, compensating for intermittent wind and solar output.

Market volatility is also influencing maintenance decisions directly. High electricity prices can incentivize operators to postpone planned outages or extend operating cycles to capture short-term revenue opportunities.

While economically rational, this strategy can create a growing maintenance backlog and increase long-term failure risk.

Bovyn warns that this tension is becoming more pronounced: “Asset owners are increasingly required to upgrade for flexibility, while revenue predictability is declining. At the same time, geopolitical shocks make maintenance planning more uncertain.”

In some cases, scheduled overhauls or upgrades need to be delayed or reduced in scope placing additional strain on already aging infrastructure.

As operating conditions become more volatile, traditional time-based maintenance is losing effectiveness.

Across Europe, operators are shifting toward condition-based maintenance, real-time monitoring, and predictive analytics. Digital twins and AI-driven diagnostics are increasingly used to anticipate degradation before failure occurs.

For example, in Belgium, battery storage growth is helping reduce balancing pressure, but at this stage of the energy transition, thermal assets remain critical for grid stability during peak demand and low renewable output periods.

Spain illustrates how system composition affects operational stress. In 2026, gas set electricity prices in only around 15% of hours, compared with 89% in Italy—reflecting differences in renewable penetration and system flexibility.

Where renewable penetration is higher, exposure to fossil fuel price volatility is lower. But this does not eliminate maintenance challenges—it shifts them toward system balancing and asset flexibility.

The energy transition is no longer defined only by how fast Europe builds renewables. It is increasingly defined by how reliably those assets—and the remaining thermal fleet—can be maintained under volatile, high-stress operating conditions.

As Bovyn summarizes, the central challenge is no longer just expansion, but endurance: managing an increasingly complex asset base in a system where flexibility, not stability, is the new normal.

Key Maintenance Risks in the Current Energy Transition

• Increased cycling stress: More frequent ramping and start-stop operation accelerates fatigue in turbines, boilers, and rotating machinery.
• Deferred maintenance exposure: High market prices incentivize postponing outages, increasing long-term reliability risk.
• Thermal asset strain: Gas and conventional plants face higher wear due to load-following duties.
• Shift to predictive systems: Condition monitoring, AI analytics, and digital twins are becoming essential rather than optional.
• Higher planning uncertainty: Geopolitical volatility complicates maintenance scheduling, spare parts logistics, and investment timing.

Study: Renewables Deliver Lowest System Costs

Renewables are often described as the cheapest form of power generation—but a full system view must also include the costs of grids, storage, and back-up capacity.
According to WindEurope, in a study conducted with Hitachi Energy, even when these additional system costs are included, a renewables-based energy system remains the most cost-effective option for Europe.

The study compares five energy scenarios through 2050, including four net-zero pathways and one “slow transition” case. Scenarios relying more heavily on nuclear, hydrogen, or carbon capture are all more expensive, with cost differences ranging from €487 billion to €860 billion.

Compared to a delayed transition, a renewables-based system delivers even larger savings—around €1.6 trillion by 2050, driven largely by lower fuel imports and reduced carbon costs. Savings begin early, reaching €331 billion by 2035.

Beyond cost, renewables also improve energy security, reducing fuel import dependence to 22% of supply by 2050, compared with 54% in a slower transition scenario. The system is also more resilient to external shocks and supports significant job growth, with the European wind sector expected to employ 600,000 people by 2030.

Erwin Bovyn

Erwin Bovyn is O&M National Director at Luminus NV. He is also a board member of the Belgian Maintenance Association (BEMAS), where he contributes to advancing professional standards in industrial maintenance. His roles include Chairman of the Jury for Technical Team of the Year. He was elected as Belgium maintenance manager of the year in 2009 and has won the Euromaintenance Incentive award in 2010. Luminus, a key player in the energy transition in Belgium, is active in electricity generation, energy supply and energy solutions and flexibility. The company is No 1 in onshore wind and hydropower in Belgium and has diversified and flexible production units, playing a key role in the country’s security of supply and contributing to grid balance.

Text: Nina Garlo-Melkas Figures: Erwin Bovyn

For today’s maintenance engineers, success depends not only on technical expertise but on the ability to interpret, anticipate, and optimise. Expectations are expanding. Communication, collaboration, and alignment of technical decisions with operational and business priorities are now essential in multidisciplinary environments.

“The demand for skilled trades is evolving into highly specialised, digital-first work,” says Sander van ‘t Noordende, CEO of Randstad, one of the world’s leading HR and recruitment companies that also publishes regular research on labour market trends, skills, and the future of work.

He explains that as these roles now require continuous learning, similar to knowledge work, skilled trades should be viewed as a top-tier career path.

From fixing to predicting: Engineers are no longer valued only for their ability to repair equipment, but for their capacity to prevent failures. This shift is driven by the availability of real-time data.

Predictive maintenance and IoT-based analysis are now central to the role. Engineers interpret data streams—such as vibration, temperature, and pressure—to identify early signs of failure and intervene before disruptions occur. In many cases, failures signal that systems were not properly monitored in advance.

Alongside this, programmable logic controller (PLC) diagnostics have become a core skill sought after by many companies. Troubleshooting increasingly means interpreting digital fault codes and understanding control logic rather than relying solely on physical inspection.

According to industry experts, data analysis has become as fundamental as traditional tools; engineers who do not read and utilise data cannot improve performance.

This data-driven mindset extends across modern operations. Engineers maintain robotic systems, monitor automated production environments, and use digital metrology tools, such as coordinate measuring machines and laser scanners, to ensure precision and quality.

The Rise of the Industrial Mechatronics Specialist: Driving Continuous Improvement in daily operations. Using methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma, engineers analyse performance data, identify inefficiencies, and continuously refine processes.

At the same time, increased connectivity brings new responsibilities. Maintenance professionals must understand the basics of cybersecurity to protect operational technology, from access control systems to smart infrastructure.

These changes reflect a broader shift driven by Industry 4.0. Maintenance roles have evolved from reactive and preventive models toward predictive and prescriptive approaches.

The traditional technician is becoming an “industrial mechatronics specialist,” combining mechanical expertise with digital and analytical capabilities.

As the Ranstad CEO describes, maintenance work has moved much closer to knowledge work. As a maintenance engineer, you are expected to manage systems, interpret data, and make decisions that impact the entire operation.

With this shift has come a change in how skills are prioritised. Engineers looking to advance their careers should focus first on developing data fluency and an understanding of digital integration.

From there, building expertise in quality management and continuous improvement processes can significantly enhance career prospects.

AI raises the bar—does not replace it: As digitalisation accelerates, artificial intelligence is becoming integral to everyday maintenance work. This development often raises concerns about job displacement, but available evidence suggests that, rather than replacing jobs, AI is shifting the nature of maintenance work and creating new expectations for engineers.

Kevin Ruttens, Senior Business Manager, Engineering at Randstad, notes that AI is not replacing junior engineers but elevating the expectations for entry-level positions.

This shift requires engineers to show judgment and analytical abilities beyond routine activities. Increasingly, they must interpret complex AI outputs, manage automated systems, and make decisions based on digital information. Therefore, training should emphasise digital fluency, ethical oversight, and systems thinking to keep pace with AI-driven changes.

The human factor still matters: Despite rising technical demands, soft skills are becoming more—not less—important. Attributes such as communication, teamwork, and attention to detail are critical in collaborative and highly regulated environments.

Data from Randstad shows that care is among the most frequently mentioned qualities in job postings, reflecting the importance of safety, compliance, and quality. Clear communication, meanwhile, ensures coordination across teams and the smooth operation of complex systems.

Automating stepping stones is risky. Even as the role of an industrial maintenance professional evolves, the industry faces a widening skills gap. Many early-career engineers enter the workforce with strong mechanical foundations but lack experience in data analysis, digital diagnostics, and system-level thinking.

This challenge is compounded by pressure on the talent pipeline.

Replacing junior engineers with technology is not an answer. Junior roles are not just about execution; they are critical for knowledge transfer.

Much of engineering expertise is acquired informally: by observing experienced colleagues, understanding why legacy systems were designed the way they are, and absorbing unwritten practices around risk and safety.

If these roles disappear, this transfer is disrupted, Ruttens explains. Over time, organisations risk creating a “broken succession pipeline,” with fewer candidates developing into senior positions.

Tacit knowledge may also be lost when experienced engineers retire, with no next generation prepared to inherit it.

He also notes that, over the next five to ten years, organisations relying too heavily on automation risk developing a leadership gap. What may appear to be a tactical cost-saving measure today could create significant challenges for operational continuity in the future.

What comes next? Looking ahead, demands on maintenance engineers will continue to rise. Artificial intelligence is expanding rapidly, with skills such as AI orchestration and prompt engineering becoming increasingly relevant. Engineers are already using AI to support diagnostics and optimise workflows.

At the same time, sustainability is reshaping the field. As industries adopt renewable energy systems, maintenance teams will need to manage smart grids, energy storage systems, and new infrastructure.

Automation will handle routine monitoring, but human expertise will remain essential in complex, unpredictable situations.

From support function to strategic role: Maintenance is no longer a purely technical support function. It is becoming central to operational performance. This development will continue.

To succeed, engineers must continuously develop their skills, combining technical expertise with data fluency and a proactive mindset. The goal is no longer just to maintain equipment, but to optimise systems and improve outcomes.

For those who adapt, this shift offers significant opportunities. Maintenance engineers are no longer just keeping operations running; they are helping define how they evolve.

Key Skills Shaping Maintenance Work Over the Next Decade

AI orchestration and prompt engineering

As AI adoption accelerates, maintenance engineers will increasingly work with autonomous systems and large language models to support diagnostics and optimise workflows.

Renewable energy and green tech integration

Integrating smart grids, energy storage, and sustainable technologies into existing infrastructure will become a core capability.

Advanced human-in-the-loop problem solving

As automation handles routine tasks, engineers will be valued for their ability to solve complex, real-world problems and make decisions in dynamic environments.

Fewer Entry-Level Roles, Higher Expectations

Entry-level engineering jobs are declining, reflecting a broader shift in how work and skills are changing. Engineering is one of the first fields where this is clearly visible, but similar trends are emerging across the broader job market.

Research supports this. A 2025 Stanford study found that employment among engineers aged 22–25 has fallen by 16%, a trend directly linked to AI. At the same time, entry-level hiring has dropped sharply—down 72% in European tech and 34% in the U.S. compared to pre-pandemic levels.

This comes at a time when more skills are needed, not fewer. The World Economic Forum estimates that 60% of workers will need retraining by 2027, yet only about half have access to it.

At the same time, expectations are rising. According to the Randstad Workmonitor 2026 report, 41% of workers would leave a job without learning opportunities, and 44% would not take a role that doesn’t offer future-proof skills.

The message is clear: if companies can’t show how employees will grow alongside AI, they risk losing the talent they need.

Source: Workmonitor 2026

ABOUT: Sander van ‘t Noordende

Sander van’t Noordende is Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Executive Board at Randstad. He started his role in March 2022 and had previously served as a member of the Supervisory Board since March 2021. Sander spent the majority of his career at Accenture, where he held a number of executive roles. He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering, specialising in Finance and Marketing, from the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Text: Nina Garlo-Melkas Photo: Randstad