Senior/ Lead Engineer (Production)

Lead plant-wide Production overall technical activities, to ensure safe, reliable, efficient, and cost-effective plant operation. Provide technical leadership in troubleshooting, process optimization, production planning, operational improvement, and capability development. Support Production Manager and Production Supervisor in achieving production targets.

Key Responsibilities

1. Process Safety, and HSE

• Champion process safety and operational discipline within Production.

• Lead/support HAZOP, MOC, PSSR and incident investigations.
• Identify production-related process risks and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
• Ensure production activities comply with operating procedures and site HSE requirements.
• Lead and/or support compliance with applicable Singapore WSH requirements, eg MHI Safety case, and site standards (ISO audit, SS651, etc..).

2. Production Performance

• Monitor, analyze, and report (monthly) plant KPIs including production rate, yield, quality, downtime, raw-material consumption, energy/utility consumption, and production losses.
• Identify bottlenecks, process constraints, sources of production loss, significant performance gaps and lead improvement plans.
• Ensure operating parameters remain within approved operating limits.
• Provide technical guidance during abnormal process conditions and product-quality deviations

3. Technical Troubleshooting

• Lead investigations of complex or recurring production problems.
• Develop sustainable corrective and preventive solutions, rather than temporary fixes.
• Perform and/ or review root-cause analysis using methods such as 5-Why, etc.
• Coordinate troubleshooting involving Production, Maintenance, Reliability, Technical, Quality and HSE.

4. Process Optimization & Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve plant capacity, yield, cycle time, energy consumption, reliability and operating cost.
• Lead production trials and plant optimization activities.
• Evaluate improvement opportunities based on technical feasibility, risk and business impact, and quantify operational and financial benefits from improvement projects.
• Monitor improvements after implementation to verify sustainable results.
• Support MEES requirement for water-cooled chilled water systems to meet prescribed energy efficiency levels, with compliance, reporting, and monitoring obligations under the Energy Conservation Act.

5. Operational Excellence

• Review operating procedures and operating envelopes.
• Identify opportunities to improve operating discipline and standardize best practices.
• Support startup, shutdown, turnaround and abnormal operating conditions.
• Provide technical support for production readiness following maintenance or plant modifications.

6. MOC & Improvement initiative/ project

• Lead/ Represent Production input to Management of Change (MOC) for plant modification and improvement projects.
• Participate in design reviews, HAZOP, commissioning and startup.
• Ensure new or modified equipment can be safely and effectively operated by Production.
• Participate in design and operability reviews.
• Evaluate operational impacts of process/equipment modifications.
• Lead PSSR before introduction of changes into operation to ensure Plant readiness for commissioning and startup
• Ensure procedures and training requirements are addressed following modifications.

7. Technical Leadership & People Development

• Provide technical guidance to Production Engineers and production personnel.
• Coach and/ or guide engineer in troubleshooting, data analysis and operational problem-solving.
• Support development of operator/technician training materials.
• Transfer process knowledge and lessons learned across Production teams.

8. Startup, Shutdown & Turnaround

• Coordinate with cross functional departments, and provide technical support for plant startup, shutdown and turnaround activities.
• Develop/review operational readiness and startup plans.
• Support and/ or lead final equipment inspection prior return to Production for startup.
• Lead PSSR to ensure Plant readiness for commissioning and startup
• Lead and/or support, and troubleshoot process instability during startup.

9. Operating Procedures & Standards

• Lead and/or development, and technical review of SOPs and operating instructions.
• Review critical operating parameters, control limits and operating envelopes.
• Standardize good operating practices among shift teams.
• Capture and incorporate lessons learned from incidents and operational problems

10. Others

• Support Production Manager budgeting

• Any other job/ work assignment(s) from Production Manager

Requirements

• 8–10 years' experience in chemical manufacturing, preferably polymer, rubber or petrochemical operations.

• Leading Shutdown/ Turnaround experiences

• Demonstrate strong process-safety and operational-discipline leadership.

• Excellent Leadership, Planning & Problem-Solving skills

• Effective written & verbal communication skills

• Knowledge of Singapore Regulations & Industry HSE practices & Process Safety Basics

• Prior experience in Six Sigma, Lean, 5S, and continual improvement programs are preferred

• Demonstrated capability in troubleshooting, optimization, MOC/PSSR and production improvement.

• Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering or equivalent relevant engineering discipline.
• Experienced with MHI safety case reporting
• Preferably Energy Manager certified (SCEM)