Instrumentation & Electrical Reliability Engineer - Ashland, LLC

Are you the kind of person that is always thinking, sketching, seeking, and adjusting? Who needs to understand how things work and then figure out how they can work better? Are you a passionate, tenacious, solver who loves to work with others who share your drive? Are you positive, constructive, and ingenious?

Are you always solving?

Then we’d like to meet you and bet you’d like to meet us.

Ashland has an exciting opportunity for an Instrumentation & Electrical Reliability Engineer to join our Life Sciences business.  This position will be based out of our Texas City, TX plant site. This is a very visible, significant role within the Company and the manufacturing function and will report to the Maintenance Manager.

• Participating as integral part of Texas City Maintenance Team while supporting plant operation, reliability improvement, and reliability projects across the facility
• Working in a team environment, by implementing reliability best practices, developing, and optimizing preventive maintenance tasks, implementing reliability improvement projects, and supporting maintenance and turnaround activities
• Interacting with other technical groups on site (process engineering, maintenance, and capital project), corporate technical networks and peers, and vendors/suppliers as needed to resolve problems and improve plant reliability and performance.
• Applying data analysis techniques to develop engineering solutions to repetitive failures and other problems that adversely affect plant operations including capacity, quality, cost, safety, environmental, and regulatory compliance issues.
• Providing instrumentation and electrical technical support/expertise in design and installation stages of projects for new assets and modification of existing assets to minimize life cycle cost and maximize asset availability.
• Overseeing Instrument & Electrical maintenance programs, calibrations, and repairs required for plant instrumentation, analyzers, distributed control systems, safety instrumented systems, and electrical equipment related to process controls and environmental monitoring.
• Participating in the development of design and installation specifications, acceptance tests, inspection criteria, and commissioning plans for new equipment
• Maintaining awareness of emerging technology, assessing applicability to improve reliability and performance, or to reduce maintenance cost.
• Leading and participating in incident investigations and root cause analysis.
• Managing risk to the achievement of an organization's strategic objectives in the areas of environmental health and safety, asset capability, quality, and production.
• Applying principles to systematically define, design, develop, monitor, and refine an asset maintenance plan including:
  • Value-added preventive maintenance tasks.
  • Effective utilization of predictive, condition based, and other non-destructive testing methodologies designed to identify and isolate inherent reliability problems.
  • Life cycle value analysis to repair/replace/redesign decisions in the instrument and electrical arena.
  • Interdisciplinary reliability improvement teamwork to guide efforts to ensure reliability and maintainability of equipment and process systems.
  • Technical support for production, maintenance, project, and process engineering groups.
  • Texas City I/E representation for providing input to the improvement of instrumentation related standards, procedures, guidelines, and corporate initiatives.
  • Business drivers understanding and applications, management of change requirements, reliability processes, and maintenance workflow.
  • Failure Mode and Effects Analysis.

The secondary responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Utilize and provide support to the Computerized Maintenance Management System (Maximo) for improving electronic equipment documentation and repair records.
• Participate in Safety and Environmental as well as Quality initiatives to contribute to compliance of State/Federal regulations to improve existing Company programs.
• Perform other related duties as assigned to ensure the efficient and effective functioning of the department in a safe manner.

In order to be qualified for this role, you must possess the following:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering or related discipline with 5+ years’ experience in the design, maintenance and testing of high voltage power systems in a manufacturing or chemical environment.
• OR 10 years’ experience in the design, maintenance and testing of high voltage power systems in a manufacturing or chemical environment.
• High level of mechanical aptitude, effective communication skills, strong supervisor skills, computer/systems competency, along with capability and willingness to work outside normal hours, including weekends, and holidays, as may be required due to the needs of business. 
• Ability to respond appropriately during site emergencies as directed by the Site Emergency Manager. 
• Ability to wear and properly utilize appropriate personal protective equipment if required to work or visit within the manufacturing process area.  This may include hard hat, safety glasses, respirators, ear plugs, steel-toed shoes, or other equipment as required by the work performed and location the work is being performed. 
• Capability to lift heavy plant equipment, climb, squat and move quickly as dictated by a high paced, high-pressured work environment, and be able enter “Confined Spaces” when required.
• Possess a valid driver’s license to operate plant vehicles.
• Must be eligible to work in the United States.

The following skill sets are preferred by the business unit:

• Strong plant electrical distribution knowledge and experience.
• Supervisory or leadership experience.
• Solid communication skills, able to present logical, clear, effective information and respond to questions in oral and written form, ranging from site management to employees and customers.
• Firm ability to apply rational and logical, data-based problem-solving processes, project management skills and statistical improvement methods.
• Proven ability to systematically develop, monitor, and continuously improve Instrument and Electrical asset maintenance and reliability strategies.
• Strong interpersonal communication and leadership skills for effective communication of complex issues across all levels of the organization, as well as mentoring, and consensus building.
• Basic understanding of industry codes and standards.
• Training in formal Root Cause Analysis is a plus.
• Ability to 1) identify critical issues and formulate action plans with all levels of employees including management, and Corporate, 2) develop and foster a positive work environment at all levels, and 3) resolve conflicts through problem resolution skills.
• Prior rotating equipment/machine experience.
• Knowledge of current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP), quality processes, and emergency response.
• Prior experience supervising employees under a bargaining agreement.
• Possess an aptitude to identify quality improvement opportunities and formulate action plans for implementation.  This requires exceptional work planning and problem-solving skills.

Third party recruiters and agencies (“Agency”) should not contact employees of Ashland or its subsidiaries directly. Any resumes sent by an Agency to a hiring manager, recruiter or submitted to Ashland’s career portal are considered unsolicited and property of Ashland. Ashland will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume, unless the Agency has a signed contract with Ashland’s Human Resources/Procurement department in advance of submitting a candidate for consideration. Verbal and written approvals will not be considered a valid contract for service.

In more than 100 countries, the people of Ashland LLC. (NYSE: ASH) provide the specialty chemicals, technologies and insights to help customers create new and improved products for today and sustainable solutions for tomorrow. Our chemistry is at work every day in a wide variety of markets and applications, including architectural coatings, automotive, construction, energy, personal care and pharmaceutical. Visit www.ashland.com to see the innovations we offer.
 
At Ashland our vision is to be a leading, global specialty chemicals company whose inspired and engaged employees add value to all we touch. In fact our people, employees, customers and vendors define who we are. They are the driving force behind everything we do.
 
Not only do we value our customers but we value our employees, and we work to offer them a dynamic and challenging environment. We hold ourselves to high standards at Ashland, and we value integrity and honesty.
 
Ashland has a history of attracting the best people and keeping them. The reasons are simple: industry competitive salary and benefits, pay-for-performance incentive plans and a diverse work environment where employees feel challenged and valued. People come to Ashland and stay. As a growing Fortune 500 specialty chemicals company, we offer opportunities for development and advancement throughout our global organization. Our values define who we are and what we care about as a company. If you are looking for a relationship with a company instead of simply a job, this may be a great fit.

Ashland is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer Minorities/Women/Veterans/Disabled/Gender Identity/Sexual Orientation. 

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. NOTE:  We do not accept resumes from external staffing agencies or independent recruiters for any of our openings unless we have a signed recruiting agreement in place to fill a specific position.