Ashland Specialty Ingredients, GP

Are you the kind of person that is always thinking, sketching, seeking, and adjusting? Who needs to understand how things work and then figure out how they can work better? Are you a passionate, tenacious, solver who loves to work with others who share your drive? Are you positive, constructive, and ingenious?

Are you always solving?

Then we'd like to meet you and bet you'd like to meet us.

Ashland LLC has an exciting opportunity for an Operations Manager to join our team at our Kenedy, TX location. This position will report to the Plant Manager.

The responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Maintain budget for the Production department and assist in monitoring compliance to the budget
• Ensure production schedules for both the Aquaflow and Derivatives production groups are completed
• Ensure training completion and qualification of personnel on procedures and operating standards
• Coordinate system downtime with maintenance needs
• Plan, organize, direct and run optimum day-to-day operations to exceed our customers' expectations
• Increase production, assets capacity and flexibility while minimizing unnecessary costs and maintaining current quality standards
• Drive root cause analysis and corrective actions for recurring production losses, downtime, and quality issues
• Allocate resources effectively and fully utilize assets to produce optimal results
• Collect and analyze data to find places of waste (eg: labor utilization, bottlenecks, process variation, performance losses)
• Develop systems and processes that track and optimize productivity and standards, metrics and performance targets to ensure effective return on assets
• Participate in management of change (MOC) reviews for process, equipment, or procedural changes
• Support capital projects, startups, shutdowns, and commissioning activities
• Lead incident investigations, corrective actions, and follow-up on safety observations
• Address employees' issues or grievances and administer collective bargaining agreements
• Promote a culture of accountability, operational discipline, and continuous improvement across the production organization

In order to be qualified for this role, you must possess the following:

• 5-8 years of manufacturing experience in a chemical or process industry
• BS degree in Mechanical or Chemical Engineering
• 2-3 years of leadership experience in a production or operations environment
• Proven track record of managing production teams and delivering results across safety, quality, cost, and throughput
• Experience with batch and/or continuous processing systems (bulk solids handling and polymer chemistry preferred)
• Demonstrated experience working cross-functionally with maintenance, engineering, and EH& S teams
• Good written and oral communication skills are required
• Strong organizational and time‑management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities

The following skill sets are preferred by the business unit

• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills with the ability to build high-performing teams and drive accountability
• Experience working in a union environment
• Ability to make data-driven decisions using operational metrics
• Proven capability to lead safety culture initiatives, incident investigations, and continuous improvement efforts
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence across functions and manage competing priorities
• Working knowledge of Process Safety Management (PSM), Management of Change (MOC), and GMP requirements
• Experience with ERP/MRP systems (SAP preferred), including production scheduling and inventory control
• Training in Lean/Six Sigma methodologies and structured problem-solving

Third-party recruiters and agencies ("Agency") should not contact Ashland employees or employees of its subsidiaries directly. Any resumes sent by an Agency to a hiring manager, recruiter, or submitted to Ashland's career portal are considered unsolicited and property of Ashland. Ashland will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume, unless the Agency has a signed contract with Ashland's Human Resources/Procurement department in advance of submitting a candidate for consideration. Verbal and written approvals will not be considered a valid contract for service.

In more than 100 countries, the people of Ashland LLC. (NYSE: ASH) provide the specialty chemicals, technologies and insights to help customers create new and improved products for today and sustainable solutions for tomorrow. Our chemistry is at work every day in a wide variety of markets and applications, including architectural coatings, automotive, construction, energy, personal care and pharmaceutical. Visit www.ashland.com to see the innovations we offer.

At Ashland our vision is to be a leading, global specialty chemicals company whose inspired and engaged employees add value to all we touch. In fact our people, employees, customers and vendors define who we are. They are the driving force behind everything we do.

Not only do we value our customers but we value our employees, and we work to offer them a dynamic and challenging environment. We hold ourselves to high standards at Ashland, and we value integrity and honesty.

Ashland has a history of attracting the best people and keeping them. The reasons are simple: industry competitive salary and benefits, pay-for-performance incentive plans and a diverse work environment where employees feel challenged and valued. People come to Ashland and stay. As a growing Fortune 500 specialty chemicals company, we offer opportunities for development and advancement throughout our global organization. Our values define who we are and what we care about as a company. If you are looking for a relationship with a company instead of simply a job, this may be a great fit.

Ashland is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer Minorities/Women/Veterans/Disabled/Gender Identity/Sexual Orientation.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. NOTE: We do not accept resumes from external staffing agencies or independent recruiters for any of our openings unless we have a signed recruiting agreement in place to fill a specific position.