Group Process Engineering Manager

About Princes

The Princes Group has over 7,000 employees with offices and production sites in the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, France and Mauritius. Princes manufactures 350 different food and drink products responsibly sourced and enjoyed by consumers every day. None of this would be possible without striving to be an employer of choice, where our colleagues are proud to represent our business.

Role Description

Princes are seeking an experienced Process Engineering Manager to join our Long Sutton site. The job holder's main responsibility is to lead the optimisation of the main process plant over the different Princes sites across both Food & Drink divisions.

• Foods Division - covers vegetable hydration, batch processing of canned ready meals, soup and sauces, and filling into cans.
• Drinks Division - includes raw material handling, juice and syrup batching, carbonation, in-line blending, pasteurisation and automated clean-in-place.

The role supports and ensures that factory processes are working to repeatable settings and delivering the required product consistency and yield, including a measure of process capability. Where inconsistencies occur, the engineer needs to look at options to either change the control system or instrumentation with suitable validation. There is also an ongoing challenge to look for novel solutions to improve plant yield, using any combination of production method or control system. Significant improvements can be transferred to different production sites. Best practice process standards will be established, in liaison with the OEM process specialists, which then form the basic specification for Group Engineering to use as part of any equipment replacement. These standards will cover vegetable hydration, sauce batching, pasteurisation methods and clean-in-place, as examples. For major changes to process equipment, the engineer will need to evaluate relevant best practice technologies, expected yield and economic benefits.

Role Dimensions:

• Develop expertise in the main production processes used by Princes, by direct shadowing of the shopfloor operation and liaising with both operations and engineering teams based on site.
• Familiarity with existing instrumentation and data systems (historian trending, MES quality data, SAP, etc) and the export of data into usable spreadsheets.
• Define capability of the target processes, relating to final product specification.
• Familiarity with food product quality parameters (e.g. final fill weights, texture, juice Brix, etc) and how these are impacted by process settings.
• Networking with existing OEM process specialists to expand Princes' understanding of how processes work and latest improvements, including economics.
• Capable of working up yield measurements, using data or physical plant measurements.
• In agreed focus areas, expand the process method and assess any changes to the control system, instrumentation or people method to improve yield.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop leadership of the different process systems within Princes Group.
• In conjunction with Group Engineering and OEM, create Process standards which cover best practice for the unit operation.
• Leading in manipulating data from process plant, establishing variances within the standard process and process capability.
• Responsible for linking economic benefits to any future initiatives, demonstrating reasons for equipment selection, expected yield benefits and identifying resource requirements to implement the solution.
• A key change manager, acting centrally between production, engineering and quality to co-ordinate trials, system changes and validation.
• Responsible for communicating any proposed changes to the site stakeholders, including specific improvements made or trial results.
• Responsible for assessing the safety element of changes to equipment (e.g. pressure control, chemical handling, specific equipment process safety, etc).
• Developed knowledge of automated clean-in-place systems.
• Being the main point of contact for OEM process or instrument specialists, developing ideas and linking to either improve process control/product consistency or economic benefit.
• When major changes are required in replacing an existing operation or building a new bespoke process plant, work with Group Engineering and OEMs to develop options and relative benefit, including in scope expected improvement to process consistency, yield and energy.

Continuous Improvement Skills:

• Demonstrate expertise in data handling to determine process consistency and capability.
• Capable of generating clear activity plans and cost reductions.
• Centre-lining process plant, hierarchy of plant settings (i.e. always fixed, change with permission, changeable, etc).
• Communication skills at site level.

Role Requirements

• Already demonstrate an understanding of engineering operations and control systems and ideally, some experience of food production processes.
• Track record in change management at factory level.
• Proven competence in data handling and measures for process capability.
• Aware of methods used to check yield benefit, operational efficiency and economics.

Benefits:

• Cash Car Allowance.
• Free Parking Pass.
• 25 Days Annual Leave, Plus Your Birthday Off!
• 14.5% Pension - 5% employee opt-in / 9.5% employer.
• Hybrid & Flexible Working - 4 days in office / 1 day WFH.
• Flexible Holiday Option - option to buy up to 5 additional days.
• Enhanced Family Friendly Policy.
• Life Assurance Cover.
• Private Medical Insurance.
• Critical Illness Cover.
• Learning & Development Opportunities.
• Corporate Incentive Scheme (company performance-based).