Controls & Instrumentation Engineer

At Air Products, we reimagine what’s possible. By tapping into the motivation of our people and our collective experience, we create the ideas and innovations that drive us forward. When we come together – where every voice is heard and everyone knows they belong and matter – we create solutions that launch people into space, support lifesaving care in hospitals, and enable the construction of groundbreaking, world scale production facilities.

The job is the Controls & Instrumentation Engineer in the Company and reports directly to the Regional C&I Manager. In addition to the primary accountability for C&I support, the jobholder’s responsibilities also cover the maintaining of plant safety and reliability, MI SIS, RCA, Best Practice, TAR, PPO project support, Productivity and Non-Conformance cost.

Leadership in EH&S performance

• Compliance with all necessary safety training and procedures in AP standards and practices.
• Conduct site assessments/audits as required in BSP.
• Engage in Incidents reviews with Operations and to provide technical support needed in RCA, work with Operation/Maintenance team on the corrective action implementation.

Reliability Focus

• Support Central Maintenance to assess causes of damage to enable Central Maintenance to provide good fault code reporting into SAP system.
• Use of data to mine for reliability improvement projects to prevent repetitive or similar failure
• Support OPEX on escalated issues on equipment that are under-performed from the baseline reliability requirement from original plant design.
• Update or revise or implement work process or measurement test in addition to the routine PM to help early detection on failure signs.
• Support Reliability reviews of new plants when initiated by Engineering team or OPEX
• Review and recommend the plant’s spare parts for control system, instrumentation and analyzers with Operational and Maintenance team and work with Material Management team in establishing reasonable stock in the plant.
• Actively work on knowledge sharing and skill development within the Asia team and participate actively in MATASA program for Maintenance team.
• Participating in Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and FMEA review with operation and maintenance teams

Productivity focus

• Support Central Maintenance on cost reduction effort, review the Major Tasks, evaluate the technical risk, and provide risk management plan for any deferrable or cancellable prescribed tasks.
• To increase visibility on supporting Productivity projects. Actively engage in Plant O&M Productivity Projects as a Technical Lead engineer.
• OTS Technical Lead on the Projects to help evaluate replicable opportunities in other plants, or to replicate opportunities from other regions to Asia plants.

Deliver operational excellence

• Support projects by providing cost effective technical solutions.
• Attending TAR planning meeting to ensure complex and critical Major Tasks are better prepared for Job Pack, materials, tools, and resources.
• Attend major TAR to support active on-site execution on complex tasks. Ensure Central Maintenance is on close direct coaching when executing the complex task as part of OJT development.
• Identify and qualify repair and service shops for C&I in critical areas in the critical plants.

Reduce the negative impact of non-conformance of plant operation

• Participate in the CONC/RCA process and ensure accurate and timely feedback is provided.
• Manage and participate in Operation/Engineering feedback meetings. Maintain feedback issues log.
• Participate in ongoing startup issues meetings to identify and remedy new plant equipment issues and understand systemic issues.

Technical escalation and training provider  

• Address plant emergency issues and help to restore operations at the soonest possible time limit. In complex situations, develop alternatives or short-term solutions and escalate to Global team for support.
• For chronic or systemic issues, lead the technical review and provide engineered solutions, follow through with Central Maintenance and Plant O&M to completion implementation.
• Support Operations on MI SIS actions to reduce overdue MI SIS activities.
• Support plant control system and field instrument functional and serviceability succession plan for obsolete system or legacy system. Develop and lead review with Operation on technical risk consequences and recommendation.
• OTS engineer is responsible for interpreting standards and supporting global team in its application on the engineered solutions in plant projects or corrective actions from events.
• Provide necessary technical training to the O&M team as required.

Reporting to the job holder are

ASU/GG/Hyco Team Lead – who support our day-to-day operations and ensure that our plant operation is met with satisfactory quality and within safety practices. OTS C&I Manager – who is responsible for the development of OTS Asia C&I team to ensure our operation to be dependable and safe under the maintenance of quality standards for all operations. Production Manager – who is responsible for charting out production plans based on orders received from business Department. He is also responsible for Materials Management and delivery of final finished goods to end customers. Production Supervisors – who control the day-to-day operations and ensure that production schedules are met with satisfactory quality and within safety practices. Maintenance Manager/Engineer – who is responsible for the first line support in the plant. He is responsible for ensuring high machine efficiencies, the effective maintenance of all plants and for the installation of new machinery.

The major challenge of the job is to keep the plant downtime to a short period and to ensure reliability of production which is necessary to enable the company to retain its present customers and acquire new business.

The person in this position will be responsible for the plant instrumentation and control system troubleshooting and plant project and continuous improvement support. This person is also responsible for the plant support of the Process Automation System (PAS) with respect to specific programming skills in Siemens PCS7 and/or ABB 800XA, preventive maintenance, plant shutdown circuit revalidation and legacy control system upgrade like AB PLC system. A strong background in control and instrumentation, including valves, transmitters, controllers, and logic configuration is necessary. Proficiency with methods of level, temperature, pressure, and flow measurement is required, as well as knowledge relating to process control, and safety systems.

Emphasis on safety, teamwork, and aptitude toward challenging work. Skills related to legacy control systems and instrumentation upgrade planning, implementation and communications within our organizations are highly desirable. Travel within the region is routine and occasionally to other international destinations.

Primary routine duties involve providing day-to-day tech support to Asia process plants in two major technical disciplines – controls and instrumentation including some of analyzer activities — and participation in new plants startup and commissioning, installing, and maintaining controls systems. Also facilitates implementation in the Asia process plants of AP global “best practices” in the controls and instrumentation disciplines—and participates in generating best practices for AP process plants in the controls and instrumentation areas.

This position is also responsible for helping to implement Safety Instrumented System (SIS) revalidation work, eMOC and spare parts strategy review in the plant. And to provide required technical training to AP-Asia local controls/instrumentation engineering technical personnel in our plant maintenance organization and our JV/Subs.

Experience: 10+ years in gas, petrochemical, or related industry in operations and/or engineering or related activities. Preferably 5+ years in process controls/instrumentation and/or process engineering.

Education: BS/MS in Engineering. Preferably in Electrical/Mechanical/Automation/Computer/Chemical Engineering

Work Schedule: This position supports field operations, which operate 24 hours a day every day, and as such this position is always “on call.”  Normal work schedule is Monday through Friday but realistically will require considerable extra hours and some weekend/holiday work.

Travel Required: About 50% of the time, mostly in Asia.

Founded in 1940, Air Products is a world-leading industrial gases company and has a proud history of innovation, operational excellence, with an unwavering commitment to safety and environmental stewardship. Working together, we are taking our passion and diverse backgrounds forward to reimagine what’s possible and generate a cleaner future for our customers, our communities, and the world.