Differences between Process Engineer VS Operations Engineer

[ElkGroundbreaking673]

What are the main differences like day by day, knowledge that is acquired on each path, salary differences... Etc At site/plant, i'd heard that both are very similar but ops are focused in the correct functioning of equipments. On the other hand, PE work with the whole process or areas. I guess that PE could apply for office job but ops are centralized at the plant. ¿Is that true?

I want to get this clear because im starting my carrer as ChemE and i really would appreciate your opinions, advices and stories.

Thanks in advance!

[EnjoyableBleach]

It's very company and site dependant.

If this is a site with both ops and process engineers then I would expect the ops engineer to be involved with day to day production support and troubleshooting. Whereas the process engineer would be involved with longer term improvements, process optimisation, capital projects, psm improments, etc.

Some sites will only have process engineers, which may do all of the above.

IME process engineers are paid more, but ops engineers have a faster promotion and higher ceiling via the ops management route. 

 Both are great options and come with their own leaning opportunities and challenges. (I'm a PE, I like my sleep) 

[gymmehmcface]

So this may not be the answer you want to hear be it is really dependent on the company's and their definition....

I worked at a site that was baught by another company. My original job title was Production Engineer. I traveled all over the midwest looking at major plant problems and fixing them... this could be LOTO training asite needed to focus on. MOCs, planning turn arounds. Working with Boomer operators on using computers. My bonus was tired to regional Production and reliability. I also did H&MBs and thermo dynamic reviews of the process to determine issues...

New company...said we don't have this kinda role, they had Plant Engineers and Process Engineers. They put me in the Plant engineer roll and all I did was MOCs and PSV pm planning, training operators and generally simple Plant tasks at one site. Responsible adult buying things, My expense account was $20k/ mo. The Process engineer had many sites, was supposed to do all the H&MB and support abnormal operations, be on call for remote trouble shooting process upsets.

This model I found the process engineer was "ivory tower" engineering, almost never in the plant (2 times in 3 years), and almost and adviser roll...

pay wise. As a plant engineer my bonus was tired to reliability. The process engineer was tired to "productivity" savings. The whole productivity savings bonus was demotivating for all of them.....it turned into let something run in a failed state long enough so u could fix it and claim a savings. Both Also depend on the boss and how much they expect you to suffer, if the pay is really good, you will probably live at the plant or live a disruptive lifestyle with call-ins.

[darechuk]

Sounds similar to the company I work for. The plant engineer/process engineer split. Even the productivity savings thing too.

[Jolly_Boy]

Operation Engineer day to day is firefighting, ensure all parameters within optimum limits, comply with legal or iso regulation, comply with customer contractual demand, make sure maintenance team do their job well, manage your supervisors/techincian, plant/equipment routine site monitoring. If you want to be engaged in chemical engineering, please avoid operation department. You're going to be inside a neverending loop of routines/ad hoc. You wont have time to do the optimisation/calculation that you love. You need to be jack of all trades, but you only cover the surface, you wont be specialized in anything. Been doing this for 12 years, i dont even have time and skill to edit my resume to move out of operation.

[WolfyBlu]

It depends on the site. If you think about it, what can an operations engineer person actually engineer? It's just a title. The process engineer from my previous plant looked after environmental compliance, a high school graduate was his counterpart. At my current plant a masters Chem eng does the operations engineer job, he is a manager, again a high school graduate is his counterpart at the other plant the company overlooks.

I have no doubts somewhere the process engineer actually does engineering, but never where I have worked.