Maintenance Service Advisor

Senior Maintenance Service Advisor

Helios Towers is a leading independent telecommunications infrastructure company, having established one of the most extensive tower portfolios across Africa. It builds, owns and operates telecom passive infrastructure, providing services to mobile network operators. Helios Towers currently operates in 8 markets in Africa and Oman in the Middle East.

Role Purpose

The Maintenance Services Advisor will lead and support the transition of Operations & Maintenance (O&M) services from subcontracted delivery to an in-house model for a leading TowerCo in DRC. This role ensures operational excellence, compliance, and digital transformation across all maintenance activities. The ideal candidate will have proven experience managing telecom infrastructure maintenance in the DRC market and driving digitalization initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

Performance

• Drive the migration from subcontractor-based O&M to in-house execution.
• Develop and implement standardized processes and best practices for maintenance delivery.
• Oversee preventive and corrective maintenance scheduling for all sites in his Region.
• Ensure timely resolution of faults and MNO SLA compliance.
• Monitor work quality, safety standards, and regulatory compliance.
• Conduct audits and implement corrective actions where necessary.
• Champion adoption of digital tools (RMS, ticketing systems, ICCP, WFM).
• Ensure accurate data capture and reporting through digital platforms.
• Support automation and analytics initiatives for performance optimization.
• Track KPIs such as SHEQ standards, MTTR, site uptime, and maintenance & Security costs.
• Provide insights and recommendations for continuous improvement.
• Liaise and coordinate with internal teams to ensure the delivery of the Region performance
• Train and mentor in-house Managers, Quality Rangers and Technicians on processes and digital tools.

Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ)

• Report and take action on any risks included in the daily operation of the Region he Manages
• Review security trends such as theft, intrusions, etc. and plan corrective actions. Provide updates to the Head of Operations at regular intervals depending on the severity rate of the situation. 
• Ensure that works are carried out in compliance with HTs safe systems of work (SSoW) and third parties compliance to HT safety management systems (SMS).
• Support the SHEQ team  of new SHEQ policies from time to time to rollout and sensitization of HT and any third party suppliers undertaking works under HT purchase order (PO).
• Ensures full compliance to vehicle inspections and review driving data from the vehicle monitors or as publish by the fleet department.
• Review monthly SHEQ report with team for improvement.

Region OPEX Objectives

• Ensure the operations teams are complying with fuel planning, transport, delivery procedures and policies.
• Ensure absolute adherence and compliance of the  operationsteam to all system, software and AI related activities that are to be undertaken related to fuel planning, transport and delivery to sites.
• Guide the Head of Operations to adequately plan and implement business continuity actions to avoid unexpected inefficiencies from HT sites with resultant out of services situation and impacting customer experience.
• All operational excellence activities developed to sustain and improve fuel and general OpEx on HT sites are adhered, to ensure sites work as per their design
• Enforces strong governance within the Region to ensure energy consumption (fuel, battery, electric power from national/private grid suppliers) per site is consistent with targets set for each site.

Spare Parts Management

• Ensure that spares are reviewed daily as per technical report/feedback from his team.
• Ensuring that the spares management visual management board is updated daily after the standard day planning meetings.
• Liaises with the Head of Operations to finalize spares and operational planning/materials request to the Supply Chain teams.
• Ensures and works with Supply Chain to ensure that relevant spares are in stock in his office warehouse

Site Preventative Maintenance and Corrective Maintenance

• Ensure the his team are complying with site Preventative maintenance and corrective maintenance procedures and policies which are implemented by HT
• Guide the Head of Operations to adequately define priority sites including HT priority sites, customer backbone sites, customer platinum sites or such important sites that may be defined from time to time and ensure that the agreed procedures to ensure optimum performance levels (PUT, DTPTPW, energy, etc.) are achieved on the site are implemented.
• All operational excellence activities developed to sustain and improve performance standards (puwer uptime [PUT], downtime per tower per week [DTPTPW], etc.) of HT sites are adhered to and sustained at optimum performance levels. Any non-compliance by his team and third parties are readily addressed and escalated to the Head of Operations where required.
• Preventative Maintenance Audits to be performed by the Quality rangers (PMAs) are included in accordance with SN plan.
• SWO dashboard is daily reviewed.
• Ensure that there is a high >95% utilization of Field Maintenance Engineers (FMEs)
• Ensure that the SWO’s are correctly classified.
• Previous SWO’s were closed as planned.
• Spares are available for the current day’s SWOs for the PM and CM visits.
• Reviews spares planning for the next fourteen (14) days to ensure availability when required.
• Ensure consignment stock (C/S) is implemented to all Field Engineers (FE’s)
• Ensure that no SWO is being held up due to non-availability of HT spares.
• RMS related SWOs are prioritized and closed within the SWO ticket priority schedule.

Operational Excellence Champion

• Ensure good relationship with customers within the Region.
• Reports daily SLA performance to SOC Manager of his Region.
• Ensure that the agreed Regional power uptime agreed with the customer’s SLA is exceeded daily on all classes.
• Update customer on any customer related actions and escalate to Head of Operations any actions which require such escalation.
• Work daily with SOC Team on the previous day network outages reconciliation and exclusions with customer.
• Examine proactive steps to be taken to reduce call outs and any service impacting power disruption on the sites.
• Agrees number of PM visits to be paid for (PMWO final reconciliation)

 Operational Excellence Champion

• Integrate into his daily leadership, operational excellence best practices to improve customer experience.
• All customer Visual management boards are appropriately in place, updated and improvements implemented in consultation with the Head of Operations.
• Support with HT Business Excellence Leads to drive Orange Belt and other related Lean Six Sigma projects in the regional cluster.
• Ensure all BE tools are being implemented and used in the Region.

People

• Ensure the standard week meetings are held and all related boards are properly updated.
• Review performance of clusters. Quality Rangers / Field Maintenance Engineers (FME) and defines with actions.
• Reviews training plan/needs for the FME/ Quality Rangers team in standard week meetings.
• Review training program for the following month.
• Enforce ownership, accountability and empowerment.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical/mechanical engineering or related field.
• Minimum 15+ years in telecom infrastructure maintenance, with at least 5 years in a leadership/advisory role.
• Proven track record in the DRC market, with strong understanding of local regulatory and operational challenges.
• Experience managing subcontractors and scope’s transitioning in operations.
• Proficiency in digital O&M platforms (CMMS, RMS, ticketing systems).
• Strong knowledge of telecom tower infrastructure (power systems, generators, batteries, Rectifiers systems, Grid appliances, etc.).
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, even with Senior Leadership within Organizations
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Lean Six Sigma (Green Belt or Black Belt) will be added advantage.

Key Competencies

• Leadership in change management.
• Digital literacy and data-driven decision-making
• Straong experience in Computer programming and Languages
• Experience with PowerBi Software will be a plus.
• Safety and compliance mindset.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, multicultural environment.

KPIs & Performance Metrics

• Successful completion of in-house transition within agreed timelines.
• Reduction in maintenance costs by at least 15% within the first year.
• Improved SLA compliance to 99% site uptime.
• Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) reduced to less than 4 hours for critical faults.
• Digital tool adoption rate of 100% among O&M staff within 6 months.
• Accurate and timely reporting of maintenance activities (100% compliance).
• Reduction in repeat faults by 20% through root cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Completion of preventive maintenance tasks on schedule (95% adherence).