OPERATION PLANT MANAGER, PENANG & KULIM

Purpose of the position

• Ensure that all the sites in responsibility operate safely, without harming people & environment, at required reliability with minimum cost of ownership.
• Form, lead, grow and develop the operations teams in the area.
• Drive continuous improvement of assets, work processes and people capabilities to maximize business profitability.
• Plan and own the cluster repair for maintenance as well as personal budget.

• All assigned sites (mostly northern area plants)

All assets, staff & work processes.

• Champion Safety, provide visible leadership and create a zero-incident culture.
• Recruiting, training, development & deployment of area operations team.
• Coaching & mentoring of operations leadership team.
• Adjust remuneration to balance people cost and competence.
• Identify and develop high potentials for assignments (including outside the area of responsibility).
• Provide development opportunities to high potentials from outside the area of responsibility.
• Ensure a sufficient pool of personnel to cope with attrition without adverse effect on the business.
• Create a culture of openness, willingness to contribute, mutual learning, continuous improvement and innovation across functions / organization boundaries to achieve competitive advantage in the market.
• Empower the site staff to take appropriate & immediate decision in emergency.
• Foster/ drive collaboration across functions and organization boundaries.

• Drive, monitor and enforce compliance to all relevant internal and external regulations, standards and work processes.
• Ensure implementation of the corrective actions from the audits, Root Cause Analysis, Alerts & Directives.
• Anticipate future product demand and ensure adequate budget, assets, manpower & utilities are available to meet the demand (immediate, short term and long term).
• Ensure availability and use all adequate means (e.g., Personal Protective Equipment, hand tools, software, instructions etc) to perform safely & effectively.

• Ensure adequate training/instruction to everybody at site (including internal & external visitors/ contractors) with respect to hazards & safe behaviour.
• Ensure adequate investigation of any safety incidents, root cause analysis and implementation of the corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
• Ensure availability of emergency response plans at all sites.
• Drive and lead continuous proactive identification or risks (e.g., site walks, toolbox meetings).
• Ensure severe risks are eliminated or mitigated immediately.
• Ensure that any other risks are eliminated/ mitigated in an adequate time frame.

• Analyse asset & supply reliability, determine gaps and drive improvements.

• Support the ROC to optimise of the use of existing assets to meet the customer demand and maximize profit.

• Support ROC and On-Site Ops Planning to adapt production to maximise profit (utilisation of tonnage contracts, liquid production).

• Ensure quality assurance systems are available and functional to monitor the quality of product & services.
• Ensure adequate processes are in place to address off-spec quality and any failure of monitoring system.

• Ensure the assets are maintained in a way that they live their intended lifetime.
• Ensure that the assets have a replacement strategy in place to take care of any obsolescence.
• Determine the timing, duration, and principal scope of turnaround.
• Set up & control budget for the turnaround and lead & coordinate the planning and execution.
• Set up & control the budget for Repair & Maintenance and ensure implementation of agreed regime on sites.
• Harmonize and bundle service providers and suppliers across the sites.
• Ensure availability and effective use of maintenance planning tools (e.g., SAP PM) and resources.

• Initiate projects to add / modify assets to meet the market demand in the most profitable way and ensure that the intended results are delivered.
• Lead operational due diligence of potential acquisitions.
• Provide operational data requirements (e.g., ambient conditions, utility availability, customer consumption & demand pattern, staffing, local scope & associated cost etc) for new projects.
• For local project scope, ensure delivery at desired quality, cost and time.
• Ensure adequate operations staffing with defined responsibilities for project execution, construction, commissioning and operations.

• Ensure adequate contingencies are in place to respond to any unplanned breakdown/incident. Lead the local crisis management team during operations related crisis.
• Ensure that adequate root cause failure analysis is done for every incident and that learnings are implemented in area of responsibility and shared across areas.

Ensure reporting of:

• all hazards, incidents and near misses
• all reliability events & all supply failures
• daily production & utility consumption
• corrective action from Audits, Directives, alerts etc
• programs & initiatives implementation status (e.g., global, regional etc)
• inventory stock count.

Review the plant/site performance, determine gaps and drive improvements.

• Customer: Develop relationship, understand needs, address issues, anticipate business potential, identify areas of mutual benefit, crisis communication.
• Emergency services: Coordinate crisis response.
• Government bodies: Ensure compliance to local regulations and necessary approvals/licenses.
• Suppliers: Ensure selection of suitable suppliers.
• Contractors: Ensure qualification of contractors.
• Utility Supplier: Ensure supply reliability and adherence to terms of contract.

• Health Safety & Environment: Incident reporting, investigation and follow up.
• Platforms: Adopt and disseminate the best practices and new technologies. Feedback local learning.
• Remote Operating Centre: Monitor Remote Operating centre performance, determine gaps and initiate/drive improvements.
• On-Site Ops Planning: Coordinate production planning (production capacity, plant availability, turnarounds, utility availability).
• Procurement: Develop procurement strategies for services and materials.
• Finance: Budgeting, financial planning and reporting.
• Human Resources: HR topics about the operations team.
• Information Services: IT infrastructure topics.

• Country Management: Align strategy and update on operational matters.
• Business Development: Cooperate on new projects.
• Project Execution: Cooperate on projects.

• Ability to form, grow, develop and lead a large cross functional and distributed team across multiple layers of hierarchy.
• Ability to handle pressure in crisis situations.
• Ability to take right decision (with a potential impact on life & health of people) under pressure.
• Ability to influence/convince cross functional teams including superiors.
• Good negotiation & conflict management skills.
• Ability to rationalize, strategize and plan in uncertain & volatile environment.
• Ability to innovate.
• High competence in change management.
• Good oral and written communication skills in English and preferably local language.

• Strong analytical and communications skills.
• Good interpersonal skills - the ability to influence all levels of the organization is critical.
• Good background in safety management with knowledge of hazards involved in operation and maintenance of process plants.
• Knowledge of ASU and HYCO plants including the associated hazards.
• Familiarity with Linde and relevant National & international codes and standards.
• Familiarity with local statutory regulations (e.g., operating licensing, labour laws etc).
• Broad understanding of mechanical, electrical, instruments and Process Control subjects. Setting up & implementation of work processes.
• Business Acumen.
• Understanding of financial processes (budgeting, investment planning, accounting etc).

• Bachelors/master’s in engineering.
• At least 10 years’ experience in operations and maintenance of continuous process plants.
• At least 3 years’ experience as plant manager of a continuous process plant.
• Experience as project team member of a new plant installation and commissioning.