The continuing evolution of technologies and automation of plant in the meat processing industry has impacted strongly on the skills and staffing needs of maintenance engineering departments in industry. These changes have led to the need for more complex and sophisticated skills of maintenance engineering staff to maintain and service the new technologies.

The meat industry and meat processing plants need to take a more sophisticated and strategic approach to attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining maintenance engineering staff to ensure they have the skills they need, to do the work, to industry standards, now and into the future.