Research and engineering isn’t needed. Sharp on site personal who know how to run the business. Divest everything else and only keep the manufacturing sites.
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@1tit+16Z3ZYAa - yep, EMRE was not immune. I've been in EMRE for 20 years, with the company for over 25 years and was NSI'd. Unfortunately for me, I don't know of anyone else in EMRE going through the same process - it would have been nice to network (like a support group).
@1rpd+16Z3ZYAa I was a new hire in URC/UIS who got cut, and I know two friends (also new hires) in EMRE who also got laid off. So yes, research was not immune to the 8-10%.
I agree that SOME of the EMRE resources should be reverted back to the sites (where many of them originally came from). However, I'm not sure this is going to happen since the CL bands will limit 28+ from returning. We do have some good technical leadership in EMRE (obviously a lot of dead weight too, just as at sites) and it would be good to get some of these folks back "in touch", as they have become disconnected over the years.
In reality though, if the goal is to send the technical work to KLTC it doesn't make sense to bring them over as most of the engineers at the sites are going to end up glorified specialists with the exception of when they have to correct everything in the field that the "value" centers deliver.
IMO, if you are a technical employee and wish to remain that way you should consider entertaining other job offers. TMTS offers no real plans to develop US based engineers. "Operate and maintain" only. The cycle will run itself and the sites will take matters into their own hands after things run their course but a lot of solid talent will have been lost in the process.
Did EMRE/URC not experience layoffs during the last cut? If they didn't, I'm sure that will be different next time around. If the Business Lines and Projects are getting cut, there will be less work for them.
For at least 25 years, I've heard rumors that the company is going to contract out R&D, or sell off its Downstream operations. I take no pleasure in this (because I was always proud of being part of EM R&D), but having worked at Clinton for a few years, I can honestly say that it is heading the way of handling all R&D through 3rd parties.
CSR is increasingly reliant on working with universities, specialist companies and consortia. There is actually very little useful work (really only related to processing crude, fuels and lube streams) that is conducted in-house - this only delivers high value (through licensing) perhaps 5% of the time, but that's enough to keep paying for this activity. However, if the company were to decide to rely on licensing 3rd party catalysts, or get out of refining altogether, it wouldn't need this kind of R&D support. Once it realizes that algae and carbon sequestration are not economically viable and ineffective for PR purposes, these programs will be dropped. The Chemicals organization are conducting more and more of their own work as well, because they realized that Clinton is too slow and too expensive and things have been getting worse every year. In fact, there is a significant number of employees who think that the only reason for combining Clinton and Paulsboro operations into one site was to cover the runaway costs of operating Clinton (which means more Product Development money is being spent on overheads at Clinton and subsidizing CSR activities).
Fuels and lubes development programs have slowed down and become more expensive since moving from Paulsboro to Clinton. Lack of foresight by the Planning Department (I know - what a surprise!) resulted in compressing blending and testing operations into available lab spaces that are far too small. This meant that some tests were not installed and need to be sent out to 3rd party labs, many of the blending materials are stored in a off-site warehouse (some 30 miles away) and need to be shipped in when needed. For the first 18 months, there was a huge problem in samples being sent to the wrong labs, and the requestor or owner not being notified or its arrival. I suspect these were the main reasons for the Business forcing Product Development to use a different model for their programs, which pushes a larger fraction of them out to the additive suppliers to own and run. The upshot of this will be that the company will need fewer employees to work on fuels and lubes R&D, fewer lab technicians, less lab space.
I predict that in the next 5-10 years, R&D activities at Clinton will be severely reduced along with a significant reduction in staff, and that the remaining R&D functions transferred to Houston. Will the CSR VP be the last remaining "Fool on The Hill"?
@dlj+16Z3ZYAa, thank you for a really thoughtful comment, good analysis, however what I've heard is being cooked for years is in the opposite direction - minimize site support and essentially run the plants from KL (scary, I know). We will soon find out I guess ...
Obviously OP doesn't have a clue about the importance of historical information and technical abilities. It would appear that OP is just a braindead monkey.
Really well written comment. Thanks for the read, this literally hits the nail on the head with some of today's problems!
There is a group of department heads working as a sub-group of HW3 (How and Where we Work) or TMTS (Transforming Manufacturing Technical Support) investigating how to increase the technical competencies at manufacturing sites. It sounds like this may be a way to disband EMRE asset support and reallocate those resources at the sites. There has been a significant gap develop over time with skill set at the sites and managers are starting to recognize something needs to change. The GRS-1 refresh did not address this gap and I think it made the gap even more obvious as site folks are more siloed than before.
Only a small number of site engineers truly know her/his technology or how to actually troubleshoot and solve problems. EMRE is not always available to assist, so things are getting missed at the sites. There are many engineers that have lost or never had the skill set of how to solve problems from scratch when the charts / trends are not already created and organized for them. Think about the recent efforts to focus on molecule management, knowledge transfer roadmaps, and similar activities. Look at the with the massive amount of technical / engineering JLAs that resemble procedures for solving problems as evidence of this mindset. At some sites, senior engineers picked up more managerial duties as a part of GRS-1, which leaves them unable to fulfill all of their technical obligations and personal growth targets.
This also exposes a potential issue with KLTC as many of the engineers, not all of them, are really only trained to find deviations. They are rarely given enough time and support to truly troubleshoot before they’re moved to the next position. I’ve seen site engineers mentoring and coaching KLTC which can result in transfer of poor skills and behavior. Essentially, this is an example of the blind leading the blind. There are some good KLTC engineers, but I’ve seen that select few fast tracked to the US for development roles only to head back to KLTC as team leads / managers in training. The really good KLTC engineers leave for better things which restarts the cycle of training new hires which keep the technical competencies relatively low.
This type of technical troubleshooting gap has widened with recent PIPs and the upcoming forced retirements, especially at Baytown. Hopefully the EMRE resources are well compensated and more fairly ranked so that the company can retain them if / when folks are redistributed. We need solid technical resources to help maintain safe, reliable operations.
Senior technical folks ranked in a site F&L senior rank group (CL 26&27 together) are disadvantaged against business team leads and other supervisors in the rank group. How can a solid, individual contributor with no direct reports but strong influence skills compete against supervisors that take credit for the dozen or more direct reports? It’s a team effort.
Total BS. Total ignorance of what EMRE does and how it is “paid”. And a joke about URC being fooled by EMRE. URC? Really? What’s next? EMIT saying that we should get rid of the business?
Building a new campus, adding a garage because we moved so many people over there is not enough parking only to lay half off was the dumbest idea. Another typical xom strategy with an unimaginable amount of money wasted. Maybe a better company will buy Xom and move their employees to campus.
URC hired experienced engineering and technical folks for in-house support. Then continued paying EMRE to place very young arrogant engineering “consultants” who convinced URC that their experienced in-house engineering and technical folks had no value and weren’t a value add.
What a F’n Sh¡t Show
EMRE is extremely expensive and the manufacturing sites have to pay for their services. Their services are not needed but we just use them as this is the way we conduct business at EM. We are better off having technical and engineering resources on sites or hiring external contractors.
Don't really know why EMRE is copping so much flak on this forum. While I'm sure there might be some EMRE folks who are utterly useless (as I'm sure there must be in every organization, manufacturing included), my experience with them has been generally positive and they've earned their keep in my books.
TS don't get ahead of yourself here, the manufacturing sites alone would have gone bankrupt and closed down a long time ago if not for all the other functions supporting you guys.
@hgd+16Z3ZYAa Lol! Woods was saying we are a technology company a couple of year ago.. he has changed his view since then.. now we are a commodities company. Maybe in 2021, we will just be a non profit organisation!
Any idea where is our CEO?
@hgd
I'll invite you to the team "working lunch" where we will create the presentation on our "PPT Lead" selection process. A zoom and Skype meeting will be created, but don't expect any clarification of which one; you'll just have to guess and be on time
Then who will make fancy powerpoints for managers to convince them we are a "technology" company