Functional Head - Manufacturing

Job Context: The role operates in a continuous, energyintensive, and hazardous manufacturing environment, requiring high asset availability, strict statutory compliance, and operational resilience. The incumbent manages complex interfaces between production, maintenance, utilities, and power export while responding to volatile energy costs, changing customer requirements, and evolving regulatory expectations.

The role interacts extensively with Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance, HR, Corporate Engineering, regulators, statutory authorities, vendors, contractors, and the local community, and is key to positioning the unit as a benchmark manufacturing location within the Group.

Key Responsibilities

• Planning, Budgeting and Manufacturing Strategy: Develop three-year rolling operational and capex plans aligned to business strategy, review historical performance, asset health and industry benchmarks to identify improvement opportunities, prioritise capex across asset lifecycle management, debottlenecking, energy efficiency and digitalisation, and monitor execution against timelines, cost and benefits through daily, monthly, quarterly and annual MIS
• Manufacturing Cost and Energy Management: Monitor and control fixed and variable manufacturing costs within budgeted norms, drive energy efficiency across process, utilities and power plant operations, benchmark costs against internal and external best practices, and identify and mitigate cost risks from fuel price volatility and operational inefficiency through monthly performance and variance analysis
• Operational Excellence and Reliability: Deliver production volume, product mix and customer quality targets, drive down process variability, yield losses and off-grade generation, sustain high availability of plant, utilities and power infrastructure, review availability, MTBF and MTTR with corrective action, and sponsor continuous improvement through WCM, TPM and operational excellence forums
• Asset Reliability and Capital Project Governance: Approve and review preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance strategies, ensure effective planning and execution of annual shutdowns and major overhauls, monitor health of critical equipment and address obsolescence risk, and ensure capital projects are executed safely within approved cost and timelines with post-implementation review and institutionalised learning
• Customer Satisfaction and Business Support: Ensure grade-wise product availability against market and dispatch plans, participate in monthly market planning and coordination meetings, review customer feedback and quality complaints and direct corrective action, and ensure adherence to delivery commitments through coordination with Supply Chain and Logistics
• Stakeholder Satisfaction and Industrial Relations: Maintain harmonious industrial relations through proactive engagement with employees, unions and contract workforce, establish grievance redressal mechanisms and periodic interaction at all levels, liaise with statutory bodies, regulators, power utilities and local authorities, and handle sensitive IR issues in line with Company values so concerns are resolved before they escalate
• Financial Governance, Compliance and Risk: Ensure adherence to financial systems, policies and internal controls, review internal, statutory and system audit observations through to timely closure, hold full compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements, and identify operational, financial and compliance risks with mitigation actions reviewed through MPR and audit forums
• Safety, Health and Environmental Management: Promote a proactive safety culture across employees and contractors, ensure compliance with safety, occupational health and environmental regulations, review incidents, near misses and environmental performance with corrective action, and drive continuous improvement in workplace safety, hygiene and environmental performance
• People Development and Organisational Capability: Set clear performance objectives and revie w KRAs of functional heads and key role holders, develop succession plans for critical positions across Process and Engineering, promote training, certification and skill enhancement aligned to future needs, and encourage a participative culture through WCM, Kaizen, suggestion schemes and communication forums
• Systems, Digitalisation and World Class Manufacturing: Guide and monitor implementation of WCM, TPM, ISO and other management systems, promote use of digital dashboards, SAP and IT-enabled systems for operational control, standardise SOPs, governance mechanisms and decision-making frameworks, and periodically assess system maturity to drive continuous improvement

Reporting To: Unit Head

Reported By: FH Process, DH Utilities & Boiler Operations, DH Mechanical & Civil, DH Electrical & Instrumentation

Business and Unit Brief

The unit runs a continuous, energy-intensive and hazardous manufacturing process that demands high asset availability, strict statutory compliance and operational resilience, with complex interfaces between production, maintenance, utilities and power export against volatile energy costs and evolving regulatory expectations. The defining challenges are sustaining safe and uninterrupted operations in a high-risk continuous process environment, balancing production targets, product mix, quality and cost competitiveness, holding asset reliability and utilities availability on ageing infrastructure, managing energy cost volatility and power export obligations, aligning Process and Engineering, executing capex, shutdowns and turnarounds without hitting plant availability, and building leadership capability and succession depth across functions.

Global Manufacturing Leadership Program

This role is part of the Global Manufacturing Leadership Program (GMLP).

The Global Manufacturing Leadership Program (GMLP) is Aditya Birla Groups flagship leadership hiring initiative focused on building the next generation of manufacturing leaders. Designed for high-potential professionals with a proven track record in manufacturing and operations, GMLP offers accelerated career growth through challenging leadership roles across the Groups diverse businesses, including Cement, Metals, Chemicals, Carbon Black, Pulp & Fibre, Mining, and other global manufacturing operations.

Through GMLP, selected candidates gain exposure to large-scale manufacturing environments, world-class technologies, cross-functional assignments, and mentorship from senior business leaders. The program is aimed at professionals who aspire to move beyond functional excellence and take on broader business and operational leadership responsibilities, while contributing to the long-term growth and transformation of one of the worlds leading diversified multinational groups.