Process Engineers? What are their responsibilities?

[HITMANVQ35]

I may have a job lead through a neighbor for Proctor and Gamble. He says it's a process engineer position. He's not an engineer so he doesn't know much about the position.

Does some on the board have experience or is working for them? What are their job description, interview process, etc...

 

[Supe]

Don't know about P&G, but most of the process engineers I've ever met where basically ChemE's.

 

[benbo]

Don't know about P&G, but most of the process engineers I've ever met where basically ChemE's.

This is my experience too - most are ChemEs. In semiconductors, a process engineer basically develops and monitors the "recipes" used to fabricate the chips. I imagine for P&G they control the chemicall processes that go into making products. For something like that it may not require so much chemistry though, but be more of an automation control type of thing. I think rudy from this website was or is a process engineer.

I'm sure googling will find a process engineers group somewhere.

 

[PKT1106]

I worked at a P&G plant for a while after college. From what I saw, if you are in the actual plant, a process engineer basically watches over the mixing processes and fixes things when they break. If you are in the office, a process engineer designs the mixing systems and specs out equipment, pipe, etc...

 

[jeb6294]

I may have a job lead through a neighbor for Proctor and Gamble. He says it's a process engineer position. He's not an engineer so he doesn't know much about the position.
Does some on the board have experience or is working for them? What are their job description, interview process, etc...

Are you in Cincy? Go to the P&G site and see if they have the job listed...they usually have a pretty good job description. I tried looking for something there in the pat (Civil) but they were always looking for Chemical Engineers.

 

[dagget]

I may have a job lead through a neighbor for Proctor and Gamble. He says it's a process engineer position. He's not an engineer so he doesn't know much about the position.
Does some on the board have experience or is working for them? What are their job description, interview process, etc...

OK, so I am a process engineer. I interviewed with P&G when I got out of school, but that was 1979 so I'm sure it is not relevent now.

As others have mentioned, most process engineers are ChemE's, though having an ME in that job isn't unheard of especially in a blending operation which is a lot of P&G. The young process engineer develops and monitors recipes for the batches, reviews lab results for quality, monitors yield and unit cost information. The process engineer is typically responsible for keeping the piping and instrument diagrams (P&ID) up to date and reviewing and approving any changes to the process that are made. He is very involved in the management of change process and (knowing P&G) will be using statistical quality control methods to monitor his units. Depending on the company and unit, the process engineer may also be involved with implementing small capital projects in his units.

There is a lot of interaction with the operators and foremen, with the lab or QC group, and with production planning (again assuming that this will be a batch operation). What with all of the different comercial changes, reformulations, etc that P&G does with its products there is likely a good bit for the process engineer to do there. Probably the only thing that they haven't changed recently is the way Ivory soap is made.

DAG

 

[rudy]

Process engineers maintain processes running. Some day-in-day-out tasks include:

- monitoring control charts to make sure the process is running within control limits

- working with other engineers, such as yield engineers, quality engineers, other processes engineers to improve the process throughput (making more product in less time) and quality

- work with maintenance engineers (the guys that fix the hardware of the tools when they break) to troubleshoot tool issues when the process is out of control

- work with maintenance engineers and vendors to evaluate new parts to make a process better

- process/tool evaluations to compare current a process/tool to a new process(es)/tool(s); comparison will include evaluation of process parameters (such as film removal rate) and cost

I'm in the semiconductor field; here's a list of some of the lingo we used, that may be used across other process engineering fields:

- SPC (Statistical Process Control): the process is monitored using tests; the data is entered into some software and is plotted over time

- FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analysis): basically an excel spreadsheet that documents what could go wrong with a process

- Lean Manufacturing: making more and better product with less cost

- Spec's: not the liquor store... Spec's = Specifications = a word document that details how to run a process on a tool, how to qualify it; lists the chemicals used

Most of the process engineers I work with are ChemE's, EE's, Chemistry majors, Material Science majors