Job Description

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1) Job Context & Major Challenges

(What are the specific aspects of the job that provide a challenge to the jobholder in the context of the Unit/Zone?

Aditya Birla Chemicals (Advanced Materials) is a leading global manufacturer of Epoxy Resin and allied products. ABC (Advanced Materials) is today ranked amongst the top 5 industry players. The company envisions to be customer\xe2\x80\x99s preferred partner for performance material solutions offering sustainable, innovative and customized products for the global markets.

The company\xe2\x80\x99s growth in 90s was mostly driven by capacity expansion for commodity products however with increased competition and to accelerate future growth, the company ventured into development and manufacturing of specialty products in year 2001-02. Over the last two decades the company has expanded the plant capacity in Thailand, setting-up new production lines for specialty epoxy resins & systems, established new manufacturing plant at Vilayat, Bharuch-India in 2013 and further consolidated by acquiring CTP Advanced Materials in Germany in 2013.

With focus on Technology to propel growth, the company established a R&D and Application Development Centre in Thailand in 2006 and Performance Materials Research Centre (PMRC) in India in 2013 for accelerating product development, application testing and provision for technical services to customers. In year 2019, the business acquired intellectual property rights of an innovative path breaking technology, Recyclamine\xc2\xae - a platform chemistry comprising of curing agents or hardeners, that enables recycling and recovery of thermoset matrix at the end of service life.

The products from company are marketed under the trade name of Epotec\xc2\xae and CeTePox\xc2\xae and cater to varying industries, such as aerospace & defense, automotive, construction, energy, electrical & electronics, industrial and decorative coatings and consumer goods. The market reach extends to more than fifty countries across all continents and its global customer base includes leading multinational companies and industry leaders such as Siemens, 3M, Henkel, Toshiba, Sika, Pidilite, Elantas, BASF, Kansai, Jotun, Asian Paints, Valspar - to name a few.

Innovation is a way of life at ABC (Advanced Materials). The company has been instrumental in successfully developing and launching several new molecules and resin systems with in-house technologies developed by the teams at R&D and Application Development Centre (ADC). The company has filed 24 patent applications comprising product and process innovations.

The significant investment in R&D and has enabled the company to differentiate and compete with established industry players such as Huntsman, Hexion, Olin, Kukdo and Nanya and also guard against emerging players in China.

The business has the potential to grow to ~$1bn in the next few years, and R&D would be a major driver of this growth. The R&D focus areas would be:

o Development of technology

o Strong understanding of product fundamentals

o Development of new products based on new technology and in line with market requirements

o Clear project roadmap and execution

o Growth opportunities for scientists to grow and flourish in R&D.

The global business commercializes 30-40 new grades every year to provide solution to customers and shift to specialty market. The position would be responsible for executing the process simulation and modeling projects related to scale-up, process development and process design for new grades. The position would be critical to support Unit\xe2\x80\x99s business strategy. Evaluation of process performance of existing equipment will allow for more accurate scale-up. This work begins before the actual scale-up trials. However, scale up plant trials are inevitable. These would decide the grades productivity, quality & yield and optimize process. With new grades being scaled \xe2\x80\x93up, commercial plants would be built. The validation of the engineering design of critical process equipment such as reactors, heat exchangers, separators and distillation columns will need validation. This job holder would be responsible as a design verification step for implementation of fabrication of the process equipment.

Challenges are: * Understanding the product chemistry and the existing plant machinery

• Converting the information to mathematics (modelling) using first principles and/or heuristics and/or thumb rules.
• Solving the mathematical equations accurately to derive meaningful process parameters in terms of process conditions and mixing performance.
• Execution of simulation and modelling trials \xe2\x80\x93 either configuring subroutines or using ready to use modules on commercial software
• Validation of the models with trial data (lab or pilot data)
• Technical information database creation and upkeep related to scale up.

2) Principal Accountabilities

Accountability

Supporting Actions

Development of mathematical models

Study in detail the product PFD and chemistry

Understand chemistry of process and link lab trial data

Observe lab demonstration batch if phase, flow patterns, viscosity need to be determined.

Decide on suitable modelling strategy \xe2\x80\x93 for example commercial software or coding or excel/MATLAB based solvers.

Translate data into mathematical models

Convergence and validation of models, & visualization of data generated

Execute the models e

Ensure convergence with optimum accuracy and speed

Validate model with experimental data or literature data

Work in close coordination with R&D team to derive above parameters

Visualization of the converged model data for easy representation.

Equipment and process improvement recommendations

Propose equipment and process recommendations

Capture recommendations with payback proposals

Make Presentations for management team evaluation

Scale Up document control and management

Preparing scale up reports

Maintain scale up records & manage ISO system for scale up

Upkeep of simulation software installed

Creation of new opportunities to improve in-house software

Upkeep of the licensing for the simulation software

Keeping abreast with the latest state of the art in simulation software

Use of tools available in the market to enhance visualization and presentation of the simulated results

Aditya Birla Group