Day in the life of
Senior Process Engineer – Jeanne Visser
I am a chemical engineer with a PhD, who worked in a chemicals manufacturing facility that runs 24/7.
A typical day would entail checking in and meeting with operators to see how the reactors and distillation columns ran overnight. Then, addressing any concerns, questions, or urgent process problems from other engineers and process operators. There is also a daily morning meeting with the manufacturing team to discuss orders, raw materials coming in, shipments, process problems, maintenance work, and quality issues.
The rest of the day involves visiting the quality lab to monitor the quality of raw materials, in process samples, and final product. Monitoring the trends of the process, creating and monitoring SPC charts, writing abnormal batch reports, updating and writing standard operating procedures, safely implementing management of change to the process, and managing off-grade rework material.
Key responsibilities include:
- Making sure the chemical process runs as smoothly as possible
- Troubleshooting process problems
- Working on process improvement projects
- Updating and creating standard operating procedures
Pros
Fast-paced environment which makes work interesting. There is always something to improve on or troubleshoot.
Cons
Working in a 24/7 manufacturing facility requires engineers to be on-call, which means dealing with problems in the middle of the night and working odd hours. Things also break a lot which adds pressure and stress to the job.
