Group Head, Technical Services & Process Optimization

Role Purpose

• The Group Head, Technical Services & Process Optimization provides technical leadership across the Holdings Company’s steel manufacturing, mining, and energy subsidiaries.
• The role is responsible for improving process reliability, production efficiency, asset performance, product quality, energy intensity, and operating cost across the Group.
• This is not a plant maintenance role. The position serves as the Group’s technical-performance authority, working with subsidiary operations teams to diagnose production losses, standardize technical practices, lead root-cause investigations, optimize plant and process parameters, and deliver measurable improvements in throughput, yield, quality, uptime, and cost.
• The role holder will establish a Group-wide technical excellence framework while ensuring that each subsidiary retains accountability for daily operations and execution.

Key Responsibilities
Group Technical Strategy & Operational Excellence:

• Develop and implement the Group’s technical services and process optimization strategy across steel, mining, and energy operations.
• Establish Group technical standards, operating philosophies, engineering practices, and performance-improvement frameworks.
• Identify major technical constraints affecting production output, quality, cost, energy consumption, equipment reliability, and safety.
• Provide technical input into Group strategic plans, annual operating plans, production targets, CAPEX proposals, and turnaround plans.
• Lead technical benchmarking against relevant industry standards and comparable operations.

Process Optimization & Production Performance:

• Lead structured process optimization initiatives across subsidiaries to improve plant throughput, yield, recovery, product quality, and unit cost.
• Analyse process data to identify bottlenecks, production losses, abnormal consumption patterns, quality defects, and process instability.
• Support steel operations in areas including melting, billet casting, rolling mill performance, scrap yield, furnace efficiency, refractory consumption, and product quality.
• Support mining operations in areas including ore handling, crushing, screening, beneficiation, recovery, grade control, plant availability, and mineral-processing efficiency.
• Support energy operations in areas including generation efficiency, heat rate, fuel consumption, availability, load factor, auxiliary consumption, and power-loss reduction.
• Develop and monitor technical performance dashboards for each operating subsidiary.

Reliability, Asset Performance & Maintenance Improvement:

• Work with Engineering and Maintenance teams to improve equipment reliability, availability, and maintainability.
• Lead root-cause analysis for major equipment failures, repeated breakdowns, process upsets, production losses, and quality incidents.
• Promote reliability-centred maintenance, preventive maintenance optimization, condition monitoring, and critical-spares management.
• Review plant shutdown, turnaround, and maintenance plans to reduce downtime and improve execution quality.
• Recommend equipment modifications, upgrades, debottlenecking initiatives, and technology interventions that improve asset performance.

Cost, Energy & Resource Optimization:

• Drive initiatives to reduce cost per tonne, cost per unit of output, energy intensity, material losses, waste, rework, and unplanned downtime.
• Monitor key operating-cost drivers including raw material yield, fuel, electricity, gas, consumables, maintenance costs, water use, and logistics interfaces.
• Lead technical assessments of energy-efficiency opportunities across plants, mines, and power operations.
• Partner with Finance to validate savings from technical-improvement projects and ensure benefits are tracked and sustained.
• Support waste reduction, scrap recovery, by-product utilization, and circular-economy initiatives where commercially viable.

Technical Governance, Standards & Knowledge Management:

• Develop and maintain Group technical manuals, standard operating procedures, process-control standards, and engineering specifications.
• Establish a structured system for capturing lessons learned from breakdowns, projects, process trials, and technical incidents.
• Ensure technical standards are consistently applied across subsidiaries while allowing for operational differences between sites.
• Review and approve technical deviations, process changes, and major operating modifications in line with the Group’s management-of-change process.
• Support technical due diligence for new acquisitions, expansion projects, joint ventures, and major operational investments.

CAPEX, Projects & Technology Evaluation:

• Provide technical review of CAPEX proposals, equipment purchases, plant upgrades, automation initiatives, and expansion projects.
• Assess project business cases for technical feasibility, expected capacity impact, operating-cost implications, reliability, and return on investment.
• Support project teams during design review, commissioning, performance testing, and handover to operations.
• Evaluate new technologies, automation tools, process-control systems, and digital solutions relevant to steel, mining, and energy operations.
• Ensure post-investment reviews are conducted to confirm whether approved technical and financial benefits have been achieved.

HSE, Quality & Regulatory Support:

• Ensure process optimization initiatives do not compromise health, safety, environmental, or quality requirements.
• Work with HSE teams to reduce process-safety risks, emissions, waste, energy losses, and environmental incidents.
• Support compliance with applicable technical, environmental, quality, mining, power, and industrial regulations.
• Participate in investigations of major incidents with technical or process-related causes.
• Promote quality-management and continuous-improvement systems, including ISO-aligned practices, Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, and 5S where applicable.

Stakeholder Engagement & Team Leadership:

• Provide functional leadership and technical guidance to subsidiary technical, process, engineering, and operations teams.
• Build technical capability through coaching, structured training, mentoring, and knowledge-transfer programmes.
• Facilitate regular technical-performance reviews with subsidiary CEOs/MDs, Plant Managers, Mine Managers, and Energy Operations Heads.
• Present concise technical-performance reports, improvement priorities, risks, and investment recommendations to Group Executive Management and the Board where required.
• Build productive relationships with equipment manufacturers, technical consultants, research institutions, regulators, and specialist service providers.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Improvement in production throughput and capacity utilization
• Reduction in cost per tonne / cost per unit of output
• Reduction in energy consumption per tonne or per MWh
• Improvement in yield, recovery rate, and material utilization
• Reduction in unplanned downtime and repeat equipment failures
• Improvement in plant availability, reliability, and overall equipment effectiveness
• Reduction in product defects, rework, wast
• Value of validated cost savings and technical-improvement benefits delivered
• Completion and sustained impact of process-optimization projects
• Technical standards compliance and closure of audit/action items
• Improvement in process safety, environmental performance, and quality outcomes

Qualifications & Experience
Educational Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Metallurgical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mining Engineering, Electrical/Power Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Master’s degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Energy Management, or an MBA is an advantage.
• Professional registration with the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) is strongly preferred.

Professional Certifications:

• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt is strongly preferred.
• Relevant certifications in reliability engineering, asset management, project management, energy management, or process safety are an advantage.
• Membership of relevant professional bodies, such as the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Nigerian Institute of Metallurgical Engineers, or mining/energy professional associations, is desirable.

Experience Requirements:

• Minimum of 15 years’ progressive technical, process engineering, operations, reliability, or manufacturing experience.
• At least 5–7 years in a senior technical leadership, plant technical manager, process excellence, operations excellence, or engineering leadership role.
• Direct experience in at least one major sector: steel/metals manufacturing, mining/mineral processing, power generation, industrial energy, cement, refinery, or other heavy process industries.
• Demonstrable record of delivering measurable improvements in throughput, yield, uptime, energy efficiency, quality, and operating cost.
• Strong exposure to plant/process data analysis, root-cause analysis, technical problem-solving, and continuous-improvement methodologies.
• Experience working across multiple sites, subsidiaries, or business units is highly desirable.
• Experience with ERP, maintenance-management, production-data, SCADA/DCS, historian, or process-control systems is an advantage.

Core Competencies:

• Technical and Process Expertise: Deep understanding of industrial process systems, production economics, equipment performance, and process control.
• Operational Excellence: Ability to translate technical analysis into sustainable improvements in productivity, reliability, quality, and cost.
• Data-Driven Decision Making:Strong capability in analysing operating data, identifying trends, and converting findings into practical actions. 
• Commercial Acumen:Understands the financial implications of yield, downtime, energy consumption, maintenance, and CAPEX decisions.
• Root-Cause Problem Solving: Uses disciplined methods to identify underlying causes rather than treating symptoms.
• Cross-Functional Influence: Works credibly with operations, engineering, finance, procurement, HSE, and executive leadership.
• Change Leadership: Can introduce new standards and improvement programmes across subsidiaries without undermining site accountability.
• Communication: Able to communicate complex technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Leadership & Capability Building: Develops strong technical teams and promotes a culture of continuous improvement.

Application Closing Date
3rd September, 2026

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should send CV to: [email protected] using "Group Head, Technical Services & Process Optimization" as the subject of the email.

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