OT & Process Control Team Leader

Company:

Interested in joining a winning team? A team whose employees are empowered to make a difference?

INEOS Olefins and Polymers USA

Job title

Operational Technology & Process Control Team Leader

Salary

$165,000 - $190,000

Location        

Chocolate Bayou Works – Alvin, TX

Organizational context and job purpose

INEOS has grown to become a leading chemical company, with sales today of around $68bn annually.  INEOS is a global company with 26,000 employees on 180 sites in 30 countries.

The INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA (O&P USA) business includes product lines for Ethylene, Propylene, Butadiene, Polypropylene (PP) and Polyethylene (PE).  Our 3 Manufacturing sites encompass Chocolate Bayou Works (Alvin, TX), Battleground Manufacturing Complex (La Porte, TX), and Carson (Carson, CA), with an extensive Pipeline Supply Organization (PSO) operating from our Stratton Ridge (STRI) facility and Hobbs, TX fractionation complex.  Our regional corporate office is located in League City, TX.  Overall, O&P USA has approximately 1,300 employees, 1,400 contractors, and annual revenue of $6.5bn.

The Chocolate Bayou Site (CBW) is in Southeastern Texas about 40 miles South of Houston and consists of 2 Olefins units that produce approximately 4bn pounds/year of ethylene, 2 Polypropylene units that produce approximately 1bn pounds/year of polypropylene, a power island and utility area capable of producing 130MW and >1M pounds/year of steam.

The Operations Technology (OT) & Process Control Team Leader is responsible for leading and providing direction for the team, and is accountable for developing and maintaining the appropriate site standards, guidelines, processes, and procedures needed to maintain a reliable DCS system that supports safe and optimized site operations. As such, this role is accountable for assuring engineering compliance, adherence to internal and regulatory requirements, including O&P’s Process Safety and Integrity Management (PSIM) policy.  This role is also accountable for delivery of front-end loading (FEL) of capital projects at both the CBW and Pipeline sites including supporting deliverables and project execution through commissioning and startup. Internal customers are Project Engineering, Operations, Capital Construction, and Maintenance.

Principle Accountabilities

• Accountable for safety of the work team inclusive of training, incident prevention behaviors, near miss reporting, root cause analysis and shared learning, and championing the MOC and related PSM processes.
• Ensure needed resource skill sets to support organizational objectives (hiring, training, development, discipline know how).
• Ensure the acquisition and sharing of company best practices throughout the team members.
• Ensure DCS capability and drive improvements.
• Develop and maintain a robust ongoing talent development plan for systems and network engineering team.
• Mentor Control and DCS disciplines embedded in operations units.
• Develop and implement a consistent training program for DSS’s and unit Control engineers.
• Ensure consistent application of site DCS/Control processes.

• Ensure design standards (OP-EDS specifications) are kept accessible and updated as deemed appropriate, and in compliance with Section 5.3.4 of the O&P PS&IM Policy (documentation to demonstrate that control systems were designed with industry recognized good engineering practices). Develop new standards as needed to formalize proper practices in design for new systems or capital projects.
• Establish and manage a practice for regular peer reviews of control system maintenance and engineering practices with an emphasis to simplification and reliance on established industry practices (ISA or PIP, for example).
• Manage the approvals for exceptions and waivers to the specifications and standards associated with the control system.  Maintain a log to track, document, analyze trends in waivers requested / granted to control system engineering standards.

• Provide oversight of the auditing and monitoring of the control system integrity at the site. Collaborate with the site process control community to develop action plans to address issues to include:
• development of KPIs to track the integrity of the DCS system, monitoring of the control system and network load
• regular review of the alarm frequency reports
• monitoring of the system status alarms
• monitoring of point configuration mismatches with the Master Alarm Database
• periodic auditing of the process control limits to confirm that they are within the documented safe operating limits

• Develop and maintain the relevant process safety information associated with the control system as required in Section 5.3.3 of the O&P PS&IM Policy. By providing Control System leadership at the site. 

• Responsible for design, operation, and maintenance of the Distributed Control System.
• Responsible for overall site DCS Preventative and Predictive Maintenance
• Directs critical activities requiring DCS expertise.
• Provide technical support to operations, maintenance, unit Control Engineers and Digital Systems Specialists including troubleshooting and emergency support.
• Development of DCS opportunity identification (i.e. DCS Top 5) and improvement/resolution plans. 
• Provide control system priorities and develop repair scopes when necessary.
• Develop and oversee a plan for implementation of alarm rationalization across the production units at the site.
• Review new capital projects for compliance with proper standards and design guidelines.
• Provide engineering support or technical review for projects.
• Create and/or review DCS work and safety procedures.
• Inspection services and assurance for site integrity/reliability.
• Develop, drive, and implement the vision and long-term strategy for the site DCS systems.

• Maintain clear accountabilities for maintenance of the process control system, ensuring integrity and reliability through periodic inspection.  Work closely with all relevant teams to define boundaries for responsibility between:

• Maintenance/reliability group and the process control group on support and upkeep of instrument loops, instrumented systems, and SIS management. 
• DCS Engineering Technical Authority & Cybersecurity team to define boundaries of overall OT networks. Align with INEOS’ expectations and site for the OT environment.
• Site IT manager to define boundaries for responsibility between the process control network and the IT network. 
• Capital Projects team to define boundaries for responsibility and control of work when installing new instrument loops that tie into the process control system. 
• Maintain procedures relating to the above boundaries of responsibility and control of work. 
• Communicate and train accountabilities and expectations to the individuals within the organization.

• Anticipate future changes in control system functionality requirements and standards. Develop strategies to continuously improve the site DCS system and processes to be in line with recognized and generally accepted engineering practices.

• Maintain awareness of the direction of industry standards and best practices. 
• Develop regulatory/compliance gap analyses for the DCS control systems. Also responsible for the development and tracking of any resolutions associated with these gap analyses. 
• Work with the site process control community, maintenance, reliability, operations, and other groups as needed to develop implementation plans to close the gap on new engineering standards.
• Develop a strategy for the process control system infrastructure and processes that are in line with the future direction of industry practices.

• Anticipate future security threats to the system and develop plans to mitigate or prevent the impacts of these threats.

• Maintain processes that allow for proper access control to the process control system. This includes access to process control hardware, configuration rooms, process control keys (“engineering keys”), system passwords, and access into the process control network. 
• Work closely with the IT group to develop and execute plans for security needs to address outside threats such as worms, viruses, etc. 
• Work closely with the operation groups to develop contingency plans in the event of a security threat that compromises the process control system.
• Work closely with the corresponding engineering authorities (DCS and Electrical) on compliance and standards associated with the IGGN 22 Cyber security gap closures.

• Develop and maintain overall DCS reliability and growth strategy for the site. 

• Drive development and execution of the DCS reliability strategy, including the capital upgrade plan, OT architecture and compliance with INEOS’ standards.
• Facilitate use of RCFA’s and FMEA’s.
• Accomplish site DCS reliability improvement to include risk identification associated with single point failures.

Skills & Knowledge Required

Educational Background

Undergraduate degree in Chemical, Electrical, or Computer Engineering or related field; an advanced degree in a related field helpful. The individual will have a minimum of 15 years’ experience in chemical, refining or industrial manufacturing and/or capital projects with prior responsibility for and familiarity with critical DCS functions/practices/application. Exceptionally strong communications skills drive, sense of urgency and problem-solving abilities will be critical for the success of this individual. The ability to work across all disciplines and throughout all levels of the organization in a persuasive and credible manner is necessary. The successful candidate should possess general managerial skill and the skills of a change agent and have demonstrated success in implementing engineering processes/procedures.

Technical Skills

• Experience and knowledge of chemical/maintenance operations and regulation.
• Experience and knowledge of process control methods and techniques. 
• Experience and knowledge of DCS hardware and best practices. Honeywell training and experience is preferred. 
• Experience in Virtualization, hypervisors and familiarity with the Microsoft administrative tools is preferred.
• Experience or familiarity with networking, firewalls is preferred.
• Experience and knowledge of IEEE, NFPA, ISA, CFAT, NIST, API Industry Standards.
• Creating a culture that drives incident-free operations.
• Demonstrated cost saving initiatives and overall equipment life cycle cost management. 
• Knowledge of safety and quality management systems.
• Ability to grasp technical aspects of Engineering Codes and Standards.
• Exposure to Root Cause Failure Analysis, Risk Based Inspection and Reliability Centered Maintenance. 
• Six sigma training and experience. 
• Professional Certification such as P.E. preferred.
• Fundamental knowledge of principles of financial budgeting and capital management skills.

Behavioral Skills

• Can motivate others by creating a climate in which people want to do their best; empowers others, using techniques to the best out of him/her.
• Proven ability to lead diverse groups of people successfully.
• Strong work ethic. Dedicated and willing to work hours to accomplish task.
• Strong communication skills – comfortable and effective communicating with ALL levels in the organization.
• Ability to prioritize work – assure the important items are done.
• Delegation of tasks – with appropriate follow up.

Our culture is one of honesty and integrity with an emphasis on safety, health and environmental performance.On our team, people are acknowledged for embracing new practices that help create real value for customers.