Process Engineering Consultants - Roles & Responsibilities

Process engineering consultants are vital for many industries. A number of companies rely on these consultants to design the industrial process through which the production of the desired product is done. The task of a process engineer requires great skill and knowledge and due to this, all the reputed process engineering consultants hire their workforce only after passing them through a scrutinizing process. Out of many tasks, one of the things that are required from a process engineer is expertise in chemical principles. This is necessary because a number of industries utilize chemical transformation for converting raw material to final product.

Other than the chemical processes, the engineers working in process engineering consultancy also need to have an expertise in materials and manufacturing methods. This expertise is necessary to produce the desired product from raw materials. The final aim of the process engineering consultants is the production of useful materials, such as fuel, chemicals, clean water, plastics, and many others.

One major responsibility of process engineering consultants is the designing of the systems and processes. During the process designing, the engineer has to combine knowledge of different components of the field to achieve the goal of design an efficient process. The task of the consultant is not limited to designing new facilities but can also extend to upgrading the existing ones. The designed process can be said to have been effective if it provides pure product, a good throughput rate, and a good yield. The consultant has to work in close association with the client and work under various constraints, such as budgetary limitation, environmental consideration, waste production, availability of space, safety concerns, and so on.

A pace in the development of computer software has enabled the process engineers to test their designs on simulations. These computer simulations allow the engineer to note the weak points of the design, which they can further rectify. Thus in addition to designing, process engineering consultants play an additional role in performing simulations.

In addition to the mentioned process, the process engineering consultancy assesses the risk associated with a particular process. Furthermore, these consultancies are also responsible for providing process documentation and operating instructions.

The roles and responsibilities of process engineering consultants demand that they have some necessary skills including maths and analytical skills, problem-solving skills, creativity, and so on. Other than the mental skills, the process engineers are required to have proficiency in CAD or AutoCAD, process simulation software packages, etc.