Power Plant Operator

Career Area:

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

The Opportunity

This role is responsible for the safe and efficient operation and maintenance of equipment at a cogeneration Power Plant. The successful applicant will train to become familiar with the plant equipment and operations, and then will be part of a two-person shift. The Power Plant staff operate on a swing shift schedule to support steam and electricity availability to the Mossville campus.

Responsibilities

• Develop the required skills and understanding of plant systems to operate the plant in a safe, productive, and efficient manner. This includes the starting, stopping and real-time monitoring of all major and auxiliary equipment. 
• Comply with all Caterpillar safety, health, and environmental guidelines while operating and conducting equipment maintenance at the plant. 
• Submit and complete work orders, log inventory used for maintenance, and review preventative maintenance procedures using Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).
• Must be available (while not on PTO) for emergency troubleshooting and corrective action in the case of an equipment failure. 
• Must be available for extended work hours during plant outages (typically 2 weekends per year).
• Communicate key issues in equipment performance and maintenance; Support the team in implementing robust solutions to improve efficiency, equipment uptime, and reliability. 
• Inspect machinery and equipment during shift walkthroughs. Identify problems, troubleshoot, and contribute to the discussion and execution of corrective action.
• Represent the plant as the SME and support contractors who are on site for various jobs. Enforce safety and compliance with corporate policies and directives; this includes Lockout/Tagout, Confined Space, Hot work, and other EHS programs. 
• Support the team by attending monthly meetings where safety, maintenance, and operation topics are discussed.
• Identify potential areas of opportunity to improve efficiency by collecting and analyzing the plant data using data historian tools.

Job Requirements:

• Technical degree with at least 4 years of experience
• Relevant Military experience desired.
• In lieu of degree or military experience, 8+ years of related industrial experience is acceptable.

Skill Descriptors

Service Excellence: Knowledge of customer service concepts and techniques; ability to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations and provide excellent service in a direct or indirect manner.
Expected Level:

• Anticipates customers' needs and satisfies them proactively.

• Resolves complex customer complaints or problems.

• Teaches others how to deliver excellent customer service in a variety of settings.

• Applies the concept of 'Moments of Truth' to customer service.

• Participates in developing a variety of effective ways to deal with difficult customers.

• Recovers from a service failure in a way that enhances customer's esteem of the organization.

Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Knowledge of the decision-making process and associated tools and techniques; ability to accurately analyze situations and reach productive decisions based on informed judgment.
Expected Level:

• Differentiates assumptions, perspectives, and historical frameworks.

• Evaluates past decisions for insights to improve decision-making process.

• Assesses and validates decision options and points and predicts their potential impact. 

• Advises others in analyzing and synthesizing relevant data and assessing alternatives.

• Uses effective decision-making approaches such as consultative, command, or consensus.

• Ensures that assumptions and received wisdom are objectively analyzed in decisions.

Problem Solving: Knowledge of approaches, tools, techniques for recognizing, anticipating, and resolving organizational, operational or process problems; ability to apply knowledge of problem solving appropriately to diverse situations.
Expected Level:

• Ensures capture of lessons to be learned from a problem-solving effort.

• Organizes potential problem solvers and leads problem resolution efforts.

• Uses varying problem-solving approaches and techniques as appropriate.

• Contributes to standard practices for problem-solving approaches, tools, and processes.

• Analyzes and synthesizes information and devises alternative resolution strategies.

• Develops successful resolutions to critical or wide-impact problems.

Preventive Maintenance: Knowledge of hardware systems and its functioning; ability to inspect and correct errors with hardware systems and applying measures proactively to ensure stable functioning.

Expected Level:

• Utilizes reference documents for Planned Maintenance evaluates Condition Based Maintenance data.

• Participates in the maintenance program and recommends solutions to any ineffective approaches to avoid repeating mistakes.

• Shares knowledge with other operators on how to prolong the life span of all plant equipment.

• Suggests procedure improvements for preventive measures to help improve efficiency and effectiveness.

• Monitors preventative maintenance system operations and advises on adjustments

• Assists with coordinating resources for maintenance, repair and overhaul of plant equipment.

Mechanical/Machinery: Knowledge of machines and tools; ability to use knowledge of machinery or mechanical objects including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
Expected Level:

• Identifies complex problems and reviews related information regarding use, operation, maintenance and repair of equipment/machines to develop, evaluate and implement solutions.

• Helps engineers research, design, evaluate, install, operate, and maintain complex mechanical equipment, systems and processes to meet requirements, applying knowledge of engineering principles.

• Elaborates on prior experiences with all major functions, issues and considerations involving the use,

• operation, repair and maintenance of machinery and equipment.

• Admired and sought as a subject matter expert regarding all aspects of the equipment and machinery

• used by an organization.

• Coordinates, supervises, manages or trains others involved in the use, operation, maintenance and

• repair of machinery and equipment.

• Overhauls and tests complex machines or equipment to ensure operating efficiency.

Troubleshooting Technical Problems: Knowledge of troubleshooting approaches, tools and techniques; ability to anticipate, detect and resolve technical problems in a manufacturing environment.
Expected Level:

• Consults and coaches others on how to troubleshoot non-recurring and performance-related problems.

• Adheres to best practices for distinguishing mechanical, electronic or systems problems.

• Leads in discussing alternative troubleshooting approaches and their applicability to types of problems.

• Collaborates with peers within the organization and vendor experts to resolve major problems

• Adheres to policies and procedures to monitor problem logs, resolutions and lessons learned.

• Supports and assists in the resolution of complex, multi-component failures.

Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Policy Compliance: Knowledge of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) policies; ability to implement EHS policies to ensure that provided products and services are safe for people and the environment and in compliance with legal requirements and standards.
Expected Level:

• Uses safety or personal protective equipment, e.g. safety boots and protective eyewear.

• Prepares for emergency situations according to EHS policy.

• Replaces hazardous materials with environmentally friendly ones where appropriate.

• Conducts risk assessments to identify hazards in the business, work areas and work processes.

• Completes incident report forms after detecting risks or hazards in the workplace.

This Job Description is intended as a general guide to the job duties for this position and is intended for the purpose of establishing the specific salary grade. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as an exhaustive summary of all responsibilities, duties and effort required of employees assigned to this job. At the discretion of management, this description may be changed at any time to address the evolving needs of the organization. It is expressly not intended to be a comprehensive list of “essential job functions” as that term is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Additional Information:

This employer is not currently hiring foreign national applicants that require or will require sponsorship tied to a specific employer, such as H, L, TN, F, J, E, O. As a global company, Caterpillar offers many job opportunities outside of the U.S. which can be found through our employment website at www.Caterpillar.com/Careers .

Employee benefit details:

Our goal at Caterpillar is for you to have a rewarding career. Our teams are critical to the success of our customers who build a better world.

Here you earn more than just an hourly wage, because we value your performance, we offer a total rewards package that provides day one benefits (medical, dental, vision, RX, and 401K) along with a yearly STIP bonus.

Additional benefits include paid vacation days and paid holidays (prorated based upon hire date).

Final details

Please frequently check the email associated with your application, including the junk/spam folder, as this is the primary correspondence method. If you wish to know the status of your application – please use the candidate log-in on our career website as it will reflect any updates to your status.

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Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a drug screen.   

EEO/AA Employer.  All qualified individuals - Including minorities, females, veterans and individuals with disabilities - are encouraged to apply.

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