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Pilot Plant Manager
Location: Zhudong, Taiwan
Division: Electronics, Formulations & Optronics
Your Role
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Pilot Plant Manager to lead our Scale-up & Sampling team within the Formulations Advanced Manufacturing organization. This role is pivotal in the planning, scale-up, and commercialization of formulated chemicals used in Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) processes in the semiconductor industry.
Key Responsibilities
- Leadership & Team Development: Lead and mentor the Zhudong team, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, professional growth, and alignment with global operational standards.
- Scale-Up & Process Development: Oversee the seamless scale-up of R&D formulations to high-volume manufacturing (HVM), ensuring operational efficiency, consistent product quality, and robust process control.
- Customer Sampling & Support: Manage the production of high-quality samples for customer evaluation; provide technical support and act as a primary interface for customer engineering inquiries.
- New Product Introduction (NPI): Drive process development activities through the entire NPI lifecycle, coordinating cross-functional efforts to ensure timely and successful launches.
- Process Automation & Digitization: Implement automation and digitization initiatives within Pilot Plant and Small Volume Manufacturing (SVM) processes to maximize productivity and reduce costs. Lead workflow optimization efforts.
- Asset & Equipment Management: Supervise asset transfers, installation, and the integration of pilot plant equipment; serve as the subject matter expert on pilot plant machinery, guiding operational best practices.
- Data-Driven Process Improvement: Utilize statistical tools (Minitab, JMP) to conduct design of experiments (DOE), capability studies, and statistical process control (SPC) to enhance process robustness. Leverage cutting edge data analytics platforms (Palantir Foundry, Tableau) to develop digital solutions and drive process improvements.
- Capital Expenditure (CapEx) Projects: Lead the planning and execution of CapEx projects related to equipment and facility upgrades.
- Industry Representation: Represent Merck at semiconductor industry conferences, promoting the quality and value proposition of our CMP slurry products.
- Change & Production Management: Manage process change notifications (PCNs), design and execute test plans to gather data to help justify process changes, and offer ongoing support to ensure compliance with safety and quality standards.
Who You Are
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, chemistry, or other relevant science/engineering degree
- Minimum 5 years of experience in pilot plant, HVM scale up, process engineering, and/or process development in semiconductor materials, specialty chemicals manufacturing, or other relevant industry
- Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
Preferred Qualifications
- Master's degree or Ph.D. in chemical engineering, chemistry, or other relevant science/engineering degree
- 10+ years in product development, process development, and commercialization, ideally within semiconductor materials or related industry
- Experience working effectively with international teams
- Familiarity with stage-gate product launch or new product introduction (NPI) methodologies
- 3+ years of supervisory or management experience in a fast-paced semiconductor materials environment
