Position: Chief Operating Officer

Location: Gujarat

Job purpose:

- Lead safe, reliable and cost-efficient operations across complexes
- Translate business strategy into annual production, maintenance, quality, energy and project execution plans
- Drive productivity, cost (except RM), energy, yield and quality across the product portfolio of Company
- Ensure process safety, statutory compliance, environmental performance and operating risk management
- Integrate operations with R&D;, commercial, supply chain, finance, digital and capital projects to support growth

Requirements: Age Limit: Max. 58 Yrs

Qualification:

Mandatory: Full time bachelors degree in chemical / mechanical / production engineering

Preferred: MBA / PGDM or postgraduate qualification in operations, industrial management, engineering or project management

Experience

Mandatory:

- 28+ years of experience, with recent experience in chemicals, petrochemicals or comparable continues process manufacturing
- 12+ years in leadership roles across operations, plant management, technical services, or engineering

Additional

- Exposure to digital manufacturing, automation, APC, MES or predictive maintenance solutions

Skills and capabilities

- Deep experience in continuous process manufacturing, plant operations, maintenance and process safety
- Strong exposure to boilers, steam, power, utilities, shutdowns and asset-reliability management
- Working knowledge of DCS, APC, MES, plant-performance analytics and digital manufacturing tools
- Proven capability in operations P&L;, cost reduction, energy optimization and multi-plant leadership
- Tools and software: ERP, DCS, APC, MES, CMMS/EAM, process historians/PIMS and BI platforms

Key responsibilities: Manufacturing strategy and operations leadership:

- Lead Bharuch and Dahej Complex Heads and central technical functions
- Define ops. strategy,



operating philosophy and annual performance agenda

Operations planning, budgeting and cost performance:

- Lead annual budgeting and AOP preparation for operations, including manpower, utilities, maintenance, services, shutdowns and other controllable costs
- Own plant P&L; for COGS, excl. RM/PM/Spares
- Review plant-wise actuals vs AOP monthly; isolate yield, energy, and maintenance and fixed-cost variances and assign actions
- Control budgets for utilities, manpower, services and shutdowns; coordinate forecasts, accruals and month-end closure with Finance

Production performance and operational excellence:

- Partner with Commercial and Finance on volume, product mix, pricing inputs
- Ensure production-plan delivery, plant availability and capacity utilization
- Improve yield, quality, energy intensity and conversion cost across key products
- Lead shutdown planning, operating-risk reviews and timely corrective actions

Capital projects and engineering governance:

- Provide operational input to technology selection, design, maintainability and handover

Integrated planning and cross-functional execution:

- Align production plans with Planning and Commercial priorities
- Support R&D; trials and execution through manufacturing readiness
- Coordinate performance tracking with Finance and automation with Digital & IT

Organization and capability building:

- Build succession plans and capability across operations, maintenance, QC and EHS
- Strengthen contractor management, operating discipline and performance ownership

Process safety, quality and regulatory compliance:

- Ensure quality control, quality assurance and product-specification adherence
- Ensure process safety and statutory and environmental compliance
- Close major audit findings, incidents, near misses and regulatory commitments

Shankar Gurkha [email protected] (phone hidden)

📌 Chief Operating Officer @ Gujarat (Ahmedabad)
🏢 Ashita Business Solutions
📍 Ahmedabad