Job descriptions for chemical and specialty chemical makers: define the skill, not just the task

A specialty chemical plant hires a console operator. His role paper says: monitor DCS, maintain parameters, record readings, follow SOPs. He has watched a screen before, at a simpler plant. He does all four. In his third week the mass temperature in reactor four starts creeping during a monomer addition. He logs it, faithfully, every half hour. He never throttles the feed. Nobody had told him that call was his.

The paper was not wrong. It was blank exactly where it mattered. Here is how plants on our hub for reactor and blending units can describe the judgement a role demands, alongside its chores.

Chore lines record activity. Judgement lines record what must be noticed and acted upon. Almost anyone can meet the first. Only a capable operator meets the second. Three pairs show the gap.

• Chore. Monitor reactor temperature and log hourly.
• Judgement. Spot a jacket or mass temperature drifting upward during an addition. Throttle or stop the feed within batch card limits. Phone the in-charge before the high alarm sounds.
• Chore. Fill drums as per order.
• Judgement. Match lot, grade and label to the dispatch note. Clip the bonding clamp and wait for the earthing relay to show green. Stop at once if it flickers.
• Chore. Test samples as per specification.
• Judgement. Flag a Ford cup, acid value or Karl Fischer moisture result that passes but breaks the usual trend. Retest or tell the chemist before release. Keep the retained sample traceable.

Purpose. Hold every reactor and column on this unit within batch card limits through the shift.
Reports to. Shift in-charge.
Works beside. Field operators on the unit, the QC analyst, the maintenance fitter on call, the gantry lead.
May act without asking. Throttle or stop a feed, change over to the standby pump, sound the alarm, reject any line-up not read back to him.
Must escalate. Interlock bypass, batch card deviation, loss of cooling water, brine, nitrogen or vacuum.
Must notice. Trends drifting before alarm, a valve shown wrongly on the mimic, a field reading that disagrees with the screen.
Passes on at handover. State of each vessel, samples awaiting results, open permits, alarms acknowledged but not cleared.
Signed skills. Start-up, steady running and shutdown of each reactor; response to high temperature, high pressure and cooling loss.
Grade and next rung. Console grade now; lead operator after sign-off on every unit and a clean run of batches.

Upsets often begin at the seam between two roles. Who rules that a cook is finished and may be discharged: console, in-charge or lab? Who inspects a tanker before loading: the gantry lead or the gate guard? Who declares a line safe after maintenance: fitter or operator? Put one answer into both papers, in identical words. If console and field papers each say the other confirms the line-up, nobody will.

1. 1

   Begin with the high-risk four

   Console operator, reactor field operator, the analyst who releases lots, gantry lead. Between them they carry most of the plant's critical calls.

2. 2

   Interview two holders of each role

   What do you watch? When would you halt a charge? Where do newcomers slip? Their replies become the judgement lines.

3. 3

   Fix authority and hand-offs

   For each role, write what it may act on unasked, what it must pass upward and what it hands to the next shift.

4. 4

   Mirror the skill matrix

   Every judgement line should appear as a signed task on the matrix, so training and paper never disagree.

5. 5

   Link grade and pay

   State the grade and what earns the next rung. The paper then works as a career step, not just a file note.

6. 6

   Revise after change

   A new reactor, a new grade, a solvent switch or an upset often changes what a role must notice. Revise then, plus a yearly read-through.

GullyHR's method is described under designing roles and writing descriptions. For a plant with larger field sales and delivery crews, see roles at coagulant and antiscalant blenders. Holding papers, sign-offs and revisions together is covered in document control for recipe-driven plants.

• Hiring. Build trade tests from judgement lines: hand over a trend printout and ask for the candidate's next move.
• Induction. Hand over the paper on day one and walk through the act-alone and escalate lines at the console.
• Appraisal. Review against judgement lines: did he notice, act and hand over as written?
• After an upset. Check whether the papers made clear who should have acted.

Take your console role paper and strike through every line a person could meet without judgement. Sit for an hour with your two steadiest console hands and ask what they watch for. Redraft from their words, with act-alone, escalate and handover lines. Pass it round the in-charges. Use it for the next hire.