Acetic Acid Process & Development Engineer

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Compensation Grade

The Acetic Acid Process & Development Engineer’s goal is continuous improvement in production capability, variable cost, product quality, process safety, environmental compliance, and reliability. They are responsible for understanding and supporting the development of innovative process technologies.

Accountability SHE

• Ensuring compliance with SHE (Safety, Health, Environmental) standards and expectations set through the INEOS Life Saving Rules and the INEOS 20 Principles of Process and Behavioral Safety.
• Reducing/investigating plant Loss of Containment events (LOCs).
• Provide leadership in PSM and Environmental efforts including Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs), Management of Change process, Risk Assessments and incident investigations.
• Input, evaluate and approve MOCs
• Conduct PSSRs for MOCs
• Participate in PHAs as the process engineering representative
• Own process safety information for the assigned process unit.
• Complete all assigned action items from PHAs, incidents, audits, etc. in a timely manner and keep status and plans for action items updated.
• Delivery of the INEOS 20 Principles for Behavioral and Process Safety, thereby promoting plant integrity and personal safety.

Accountability Day to day management of Asset

• Chair morning plant operations meeting for the Asset. Setting of agenda, allocation of actions and ensuring they are promptly followed up. Plant incidents to be discussed together with new near misses and outstanding actions that will be collated and summarized by Operations Supervisor. 
• Compilation of nightly and weekend instructions.  Ensure that shift teams, Operations Supervisor, Work Execution Supervisor and Site Shift Lead are advised of requirements and upcoming workload.
• Management of relationships with onsite tenants and key vendors and customers.

Accountability Management of plant upsets, shutdowns, and restarts. Overall operations management of TAR/recat, including:

• Provide an overview of planned and unplanned plant transients, supporting the Operations Supervisor, Shift Team Leaders, and Asset Project & Safety Lead.  Supporting technical troubleshooting. Providing support to the Shift Team Leaders and Operations Supervisors in plant recovery situations. Over viewing plant shutdown/restart, ensuring that Shift Team Leaders and Operations Supervisor are aware of overall picture and intentions and that this is effectively communicated.
• Single point of contact for operational aspects of plant restart audits.
• Development of plant isolation envelopes, procedures, preps and permits, aligned to plant outage or TAR work scope. Managing the generation of permits through self, Operations Supervisor, Asset Manager and Shift Team Leaders.
• Single point of contact for catalyst strategy development and implementation, including:
• Monitoring of catalyst life, optimizing catalyst performance to deliver business targets for MPR and efficiency.
• Work with catalyst/support suppliers and Procurement Manager in defining catalyst orders to meet recat schedule.

Accountability Production planning and Efficient Plant operation, including:

• Plant optimization: through monitoring of PI data/trends identify areas for process optimization to meet plant performance targets. Work with Asset Project and Reliability Engineer and Asset Support to identify, and take forward, opportunities for process improvement. Maintain up to date plant vulnerability lists.
• Manage the operational variable costs budget and conversion efficiency performance. Ensuring plant operation to meet conversion efficiency targets within plant technical standards and investigating deviations. Updating the technical standards of plants each year demonstrate continual improvement.
• Responsibility for weekly and monthly production planning. Working with logistics planning team and site operations team to determine any restrictions and the optimum way to meet business tonnage and efficiency requirements.

Accountability Provide Asset Operations Expertise, including:

• Carry out reviews and updates for all operational aspects of existing plant documentation including:
• Local emergency procedures
• Normal operating procedures
• Start-up and shutdown procedures
• Valve & blank checklists
• Sealed open/sealed closed valve lists
• Shift routines
• Approver for complex plant preparation procedures
• Quality assurance role for AA process to ensure compliance with ISO9001.
• Operations specialist input to Management of Change design Act as responsible engineer role for MOCs (as applicable) and act as MOC Manager when needed.
• Develop critical operating procedures.
• Own and manage the DCS Alarm System for the asset, including trending and analyzing alarm data to drive reductions in alarm counts.
• Define, maintain and tracks observance of operating envelope for the assigned process unit.
• Develop and maintain process focused KPIs.

Accountability Provide cover for the Operations Supervisor and Asset Manager roles as required. 

Accountability Provide Process Technical Support for the Asset and Commercial Development

• Conduct engineering studies and troubleshoot processes to support manufacturing
• Provide capacity evaluations of existing and modified equipment
• Develop Process and Instrument Diagrams (P&ID’s) for new and modified facilities
• Identify process bottlenecks and develop projects to provide incremental capacity increases
• Provide technical evaluations to support commercial development efforts.
• Develop, evaluate, calculate, and design plant equipment and process changes to achieve safety, environmental, production, reliability, quality, and cost goals.

Level of Education & Knowledge:

• B.S. in Chemical Engineering from accredited college/university or degree in another engineering discipline with prior chemical process manufacturing experience.
• 5+ years of experience in a chemical plant or refinery.
• Experience & Technical Skills:
• Knowledge of Safety, Health, and Environmental Quality issues
• Statistical process improvement skills preferred
• High familiarity with common industry practices such as Management of Change (MOC), Root Cause Investigation (RCI), Risk Identification and Management
• High familiarity with common industry software applications such as Aspen Process Simulation Tools, Aspen Process Explorer, PI Process Book