Chemical production manager

Description

Chemical production managers are responsible for the technical coordination and control of the chemical production processes. They steer one or more manufacturing units and oversee the implementation of technical and human means, within the framework of objectives of volume, quality and planning. Chemical production managers design and ensure that the production plans and schedules are met. They are responsible for implementation of the processes designed to ensure quality of the manufactured product, good working conditions and environmental practices, and safety of the workplace.

Other titles

The following job titles also refer to chemical production manager:

chemical production director
chemical operations manager
chemical production coordinator
chemical manufacturing manager
chemical production quality supervisor
chemical manufacturing director
chemical process manager
production manager of chemicals
operations manager chemical production
chemical process engineer
chemical production engineer
chemical production planner

Minimum qualifications

Bachelor’s degree is generally required to work as chemical production manager. However, this requirement may differ in some countries.

ISCO skill level

ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:

  • the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
  • the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
  • the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.

Chemical production manager is a Skill level 4 occupation.

Chemical production manager career path

Similar occupations

These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to chemical production manager.

industrial production manager
chemical plant manager
power plant manager
sewerage systems manager
water treatment plant manager

Long term prospects

These occupations require some skills and knowledge of chemical production manager. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of chemical production manager with a significant experience and/or extensive training.

Essential knowledge and skills

Essential knowledge

This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of chemical production manager.

Good manufacturing practices: Regulatory requirements and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) applied in the relevant manufacturing sector.
Manufacturing processes: The steps required through which a material is transformed into a product, its development and full-scale manufacturing.
Risk management: The process of identifying, assessing, and prioritising of all types of risks and where they could come from, such as natural causes, legal changes, or uncertainty in any given context, and the methods on dealing with risks effectively.
Chemical processes: The relevant chemical processes used in manufacture, such as purification, seperation, emulgation and dispergation processing.
Supply chain principles: Characteristics, operations and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to the customer.
Manufacturing plant equipment: The characteristics and functioning conditions of manufacturing plant equipments such as chemical reactors, addition tanks, pumps, filters, mixers.
Leadership principles: Set of traits and values which guide the actions of a leader with her/his employees and the company and provide direction throughout her/his career. These principles are also an important tool for self-evaluation to identify strengths and weaknesses, and seek self-improvement.

Essential skills and competences

These skills are necessary for the role of chemical production manager.

Manage supplies: Monitor and control the flow of supplies that includes the purchase, storage and movement of the required quality of raw materials, and also work-in-progress inventory. Manage supply chain activities and synchronise supply with demand of production and customer.
Keep up with digital transformation of industrial processes: Keep up to date with digital innovations applicable to industrial processes. Integrate these transformations in the company’s processes aiming for competitive and profitable business models.
Ensure compliance with environmental legislation: Monitor activities and perform tasks ensuring compliance with standards involving environmental protection and sustainability, and amend activities in the case of changes in environmental legislation. Ensure that the processes are compliant with environment regulations and best practices.
Adjust production schedule: Adjust work schedule in order to maintain permanent shift operation.
Manage budgets: Plan, monitor and report on the budget.
Ensure compliance with safety legislation: Implement safety programmes to comply with national laws and legislation. Ensure that equipment and processes are compliant with safety regulations.
Strive for company growth: Develop strategies and plans aiming at achieving a sustained company growth, be the company self-owned or somebody else’s. Strive with actions to increase revenues and positive cash flows.
Manage staff: Manage employees and subordinates, working in a team or individually, to maximise their performance and contribution. Schedule their work and activities, give instructions, motivate and direct the workers to meet the company objectives. Monitor and measure how an employee undertakes their responsibilities and how well these activities are executed. Identify areas for improvement and make suggestions to achieve this. Lead a group of people to help them achieve goals and maintain an effective working relationship among staff.
Create manufacturing guidelines: Draft procedures and guidelines to ensure that government and industry regulations are met by manufacturers in both international and domestic markets.
Monitor manufacturing quality standards: Monitor quality standards in manufacturing and finishing process.
Improve chemical processes: Collect data required to make improvements or modifications to chemical processes. Develop new industrial processes, design new process plants/equipment or modify existing ones.
Manage chemical processes inspection: Manage the chemical in-process inspection, making sure the inspection results are documented, the inspection procedures are well written and the checklists are updated.
Adhere to standard procedures: Adhere to and follow the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
Adapt production levels: Adapt current production levels and strive to improve the current production rates looking for economic gains and margins. Negotiate improvement with sales, dispatch and distribution departments.
Develop manufacturing policies: Develop policies and procedures applied in manufacturing with the aim of improving competitiveness and capabilities of the industry.
Assess quality of services: Test and compare various goods and services in order to assess their quality and to give detailed information to consumers.
Meet deadlines: Ensure operative processes are finished at a previously agreed-upon time.
Analyse supply chain strategies: Examine an organisation’s planning details of production, their expected output units, quality, quantity, cost, time available and labour requirements. Provide suggestions in order to improve products, service quality and reduce costs.
Adhere to organisational guidelines: Adhere to organisational or department specific standards and guidelines. Understand the motives of the organisation and the common agreements and act accordingly.
Plan health and safety procedures: Set up procedures for maintaining and improving health and safety in the workplace.
Monitor plant production: Monitor the plant processes set-up and efficiency to ensure the maximum output production levels.
Perform product planning: Identify and articulate market requirements that define a product’s feature set. Product planning serves as the basis for decisions about price, distribution and promotion.
Assess environmental impact: Monitor environmental impacts and carry out assessments in order to identify and to reduce the organisation’s environmental risks while taking costs into account.
Communicate production plan: Communicates production plan to all levels in a way that targets, processes, and requirements are clear. Ensures that information is passed to everyone involved in the process assuming their responsibility for overall success.
Liaise with managers: Liaise with managers of other departments ensuring effective service and communication, i.e. sales, planning, purchasing, trading, distribution and technical.
Follow company standards: Lead and manage according to the organisation’s code of conduct.
Monitor chemical process condition: Monitor the conformity of the chemical process, checking all indicators or warning signals provided by the instruments such as recording instruments, flowmeters and panel lights.
Regulate chemical reaction: Regulate the reaction by adjusting the steam and coolant valves so that the reaction is within the specified limits for explosion prevention.

Optional knowledge and skills

Optional knowledge

This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of chemical production manager. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Nuclear reprocessing: The process in which radioactive substances can be extracted or recycled for use as nuclear fuel, and in which waste levels can be reduced, yet without the reduction of radioactivity levels or generation of heat.
Energy: Power capacity in the form of mechanical, electrical, heat, potential, or other energy from chemical or physical resources, which can be used to drive a physical system.
Engineering principles: The engineering elements like functionality, replicability, and costs in relation to the design and how they are applied in the completion of engineering projects.
Pharmaceutical drug development: Drug manufacturing phases: pre-clinical phase (research and tests on animals), clinical phase (clinical trials on humans) and the sub-phases required to obtain as an end product a pharmaceutical drug.
Pharmaceutical technology: Pharmaceutical technology is the branch of pharmaceutics which deals with the technological design, development, manufacture, and evaluation of drugs and medicinal products.
Nuclear energy: The generation of electrical energy through the use of nuclear reactors, by converting the energy released from nuclei of atoms in reactors which generate heat. This heat subsequently generates steam which can power a steam turbine to generate electricity.
Laboratory techniques: Techniques applied in the different fields of natural science in order to obtain experimental data such as gravimetric analysis, gas chromatography, electronic or thermic methods.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing quality systems: The quality systems model that apply in pharmaceutical manufacturies. The most common system ensures quality in facilities and equipment system, laboratory controls system, materials system, production system and packaging and labelling system.
Ict software specifications: The characteristics, use and operations of various software products such as computer programmes and application software.
Pharmaceutical industry: The main stakeholders, companies and procedures in the pharmaceutical industry and the laws and regulations that govern the patenting, testing, safety and marketing of drugs.
Multimedia systems: The methods, procedures and techniques pertaining to the operation of multimedia systems, usually a combination of software and hardware, presenting various types of media such as video and audio.
Pharmaceutical chemistry: The chemical aspects of identification and synthetic alteration of chemical entities as they relate to therapeutic use. The way various chemicals affect biological systems and how they can be integrated in drug development.
Characteristics of chemicals used for tanning: Composition and physico-chemical properties of auxiliary chemicals used in the different tanning processes (tanning agents, fat liquors, pigments, dyes, etc.)
Mechanics: Theoretical and practical applications of the science studying the action of displacements and forces on physical bodies to the development of machinery and mechanical devices.

Optional skills and competences

These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of chemical production manager. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Optimise production processes parameters: Optimise and maintain the parameters of the production process such as flow, temperature or pressure.
Inspect quality of products: Use various techniques to ensure the product quality is respecting the quality standards and specifications. Oversee defects, packaging and sendbacks of products to different production departments.
Oversee production requirements: Oversee production processes and prepare all the resources needed to maintain an efficient and continuous flow of production.
Define manufacturing quality criteria: Define and describe the criteria by which data quality is measured for manufacturing purposes, such as international standards and manufacturing regulations.
Communicate with external laboratories: Communicate with the external analytical laboratories in order to manage the required external testing process.
Develop radiation protection strategies: Develop strategies for facilities and organisations which are at risk for exposure to radiation or radioactive substances, such as hospitals and nuclear facilities, for the protection of people within the premises in case of risk, as well as the minimisation of radiation exposure during working operations.
Instruct employees on radiation protection: Explain the various legal and operational measures established in the company against radiation, such as reducing exposure time and wearing protective gear, to the employees and communicate the emergency procedures.
Test chemical samples: Perform the testing procedures on the already prepared chemical samples, by using the necessary equipment and materials. Chemical sample testing involves operations such as pipetting or diluting schemes.
Manage chemical testing procedures: Manage the procedures to be used in chemical testing by designing them and conducting tests accordingly.
Use chemical analysis equipment: Use the laboratory equipment such as Atomic Absorption equimpent, PH and conductivity meters or salt spray chambre.
Ensure compliance with radiation protection regulations: Make sure the company and the employees implement the legal and operational measures established to guarantee protection against radiation.
Manage manufacturing documentation: Manage the reports and technical documentation such as Standard Operating Procedures or logbooks, by writing and reviewing them, capturing and eliminating any deviation and ambiguity.
Provide training: Provide training and orientation to new team members, or assign this task to an appropriately experienced team member.
Test production input materials: Test the supplied materials prior to their release into processing, ensuring the results are complying with GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) and to the suppliers` COA (Certificate of Analysis).
Advise on waste management procedures: Advise organisations on the implementation of waste regulations and on improvement strategies for waste management and waste minimisation, to increase environmentally sustainable practices and environmental awareness.

ISCO group and title

1321 – Manufacturing managers

 

 


 

 

References
  1. Chemical production manager – ESCO
Last updated on August 8, 2022