Plant and Value Chain Optimizing

Plant and Value Chain Optimization Director

Salary Range: $163,675 per year

Location:

1500 N. 19th Street, Suite 501, Monroe, LA 71201 and various unanticipated locations

Travel: primarily to Drax operating sites within the US and Canada (approximately 20-50% of time), with occasional global travel.

• Coordinate with North American operations staff and core services to advance low and no capital opportunities to make business improvements through effective modelling and debottlenecking.
• Work with stakeholders inside Drax to scope new opportunities, quantify potential value, and identify concepts ready for development toward implementation.
• Engage commercial partners, contractors, public institutions, and other external stakeholders to forge relationships and terms in support of the commercial or technical requirements for implementation of new technology.
• Create and manage scope for small scale tests of implementing new technology at North American assets to debottleneck or improve existing processes.
• Coordinate cross functional groups to create valuable products harnessing the power of new data streams and measurement technologies toward meaningful business improvement.
• Help identify means of reducing cost and improving efficiency at DBI assets, which is critical to Drax achieving its purpose of enabling a zero carbon lower cost energy future.
• Improve the existing DBI business through harnessing benefits of new technology that augments existing operations.
• Provide leadership for implementation of novel solutions to address business challenges through providing vision to diverse stakeholders and creating alignment.
• Evaluate and control spend to stay within existing budgets. Engage Horizon 1 staff to understand needs, pain points, and opportunities across the North American value chain and gain input on technology gaps prevent resolution of challenges.
• Evaluate and identify, with assistance from the Innovation Engineers, new technology to address challenges within North America and unlock value for DBI.
• Scope projects with partners in the business including Horizon 1, Data Analytics, and other Core Services to implement and harness new technology toward process improvements.
• Gain alignment from stakeholders on execution strategy for projects and develop budgets. Coordinate resources as needed to install new technology and harness new data streams.
• Ensure quality of products through continuous feedback from Horizon 1 users and by ensuring quality communication between Horizon and other partners in the business.
• Measure financial benefits of projects and report successes to relevant Drax leadership with concepts for scale out/scale up.
• Work closely alongside the Innovation Senior Leadership Team to ensure awareness of future developments in the marketplace and consider the options to capitalize on them.
• Ensure the most appropriate choices are made which allow Drax to deliver our purpose at greatest value.
• Provide leadership, coaching and direction to other members of the Innovation team.
• This application is for a roving employee who will work at 1500 N. 19th Street, Suite 501, Monroe, LA 71201 and various unanticipated locations.

• Bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent in Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering or a related field of study, and three (3) years of experience in a related position in the wood pellet manufacturing or similar industry.
• Work experience or academic coursework must have included:
  • Experience in renewable energy, decarbonization, and process optimization;
  • Process engineering experience in the manufacture of wood pellets, including equipment troubleshooting on common unit operations such as hammer milling, drying, and pelletizing;
  • Project execution and management experience in industrial environments;
  • Experience evaluating, testing, and implementing new technology or process improvements in the field of wood products manufacturing;
  • Experience troubleshooting mechanical equipment with a focus on rotating machinery;
  • Knowledge of operating principles and control schemes for major process operations in wood pellet manufacturing, including rotary drum drying,…