Director of Operations

Westlake offers you the potential to enrich your work life and career experience in an entrepreneurial environment. We work together to enhance peoples' lives through our products and presence in the communities in which we operate.​

SUMMARY:   Manage and support activities for Operational Excellence to include Corporate reliability, Turnaround Best Practices for Planning and Execution, Strategic Planning, Operational Analysis, Continuous Improvement, Digitalization, support large front-end project development (before handed over to Major Project Group), and Process Technology Management.  Establish systems and procedures, etc. necessary to drive improvement and meet Business objectives. Set standards of performance and develop and enforce compliance with Company rules, policies and procedures.  Analyze chemical plant performance and make recommendations for improvements.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Corporate Manufacturing Department operations expertise and review.  Will be involved in large front-end engineering efforts, resolution of plant repeats quality issues, and significant equipment failure issues as required.  Incumbent must be current and informed of technical changes and improvements.

Issue monthly turnaround report to ensure proper communication of turnaround schedules and costs. 

Supervise Continuous Improvement, Corporate Reliability, and Process Technology teams.

Special Projects support and review. Will support special projects during the review, approval, and implementation process.

Turnaround Best Practices coordination and documentation. Provides guidelines to Plants on best practices for small, medium and large turnarounds. The group works with the Plants to ensure adherence to these guidelines. Develop a TAR manual that will be used at all sites with a tiered approach to handle the small, medium and large TARs.

Manage department’s Best Practices efforts and ensure Best Practices are documented.

Operations analysis will include review of operations performance, research of bench marking data, and issuance of overall operations bench marking reports.  Also, to include review and coordination required to publish the Manufacturing Department annual Strategic Plan including gap analysis and gap closure strategies.

Operations facility support will support chemical plant facilities during large unit outages, review and implementation of area efficiency processes, and larger scale facility performance improvement efforts.

Supervises the Vinyls and Olefin Technical Expert team. Ensure consistency across the Technology Experts.

Other job duties as determined by the Sr Vice President of Capital Projects, Engineering, and Operational Excellence

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:  Direct supervision Continuous Improvement, Process Technology group, Corporate Reliability group, and Special Project Designees.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:  B. S. degree in Mechanical or Chemical Engineering required.  MBA or additional education preferred.  Fifteen years chemical plant production / project experience with ten years in progressive supervisory positions also required.  Must possess strong interpersonal and management skills. 

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit; stand; walk; use hands to touch, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear.  The employee is occasionally required to stoop, kneel, or crouch.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus. Additionally, this position must make general decisions requiring judgement and perform activities requiring sustained concentration.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: The noise level in the work environment is sometimes moderate when working in an office, however, some of the work may be required in the operating units which mandates usage of required PPE including safety glasses, hearing protection, etc.  May also result in exposure to outside elements and may require usage of stairs and elevators.  Travel including air travel or auto travel may occasionally be required.

WORK LOCATION: If an internal candidate is chosen, strong preference for Houston location, but US based Westlake plant locations may be considered. This person will likely be required to travel to our plant locations in the United States and possibly other locations.

Westlake is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristics protected by applicable legislation.

If you are an active Westlake employee (or an employee of any Westlake affiliates), please do not apply here. You will apply via the Jobs Hub application in Workday.