Job Description
GENERAL MANAGER - PRODUCTION
Aberdeen Holdings is a diversified conglomerate operating across multiple industries, creating meaningful impact at scale and reaching millions of lives. We are seeking a technically strong, hands-on GM – Production to lead production, finished-goods blending, engineering and maintenance, laboratory coordination, staff development and continuous improvement. This role requires chemical-engineering knowledge and practical knowledge of spice extraction, steam distillation, blending, packing and plant utilities.
Key Responsibilities
- Factory Operations and Production: Plan and manage daily and shift operations based on orders, raw-material availability and plant capacity. Coordinate production, finished goods, laboratory, stores and maintenance to achieve output, delivery, quality and cost targets.
- Extraction and Processing: Select suitable solvents and process conditions for different spices and botanicals. Control distillation and extraction conditions to achieve required yield, assay, colour, aroma and residual-solvent specifications.
- Blending and Finished Goods: Supervise standardization, blending and packing of oleoresins, essential oils, active ingredients and flavours. Calculate blends and ensure uniformity, stability, sensory quality, traceability and compliance with customer specifications.
- Laboratory and Trials: Coordinate sampling and testing, interpret results and resolve non-conforming batches. Plan product-development and scale-up trials for essential oils, oleoresins and isolated active ingredients.
- Engineering and Maintenance: Ensure safe, reliable operation and preventive maintenance of the biomass boiler, distillation & oleoresin plants, and destoning, colour-sorting, dehydrating, milling and blending machinery through preventive/breakdown maintenance.
- Improvement, Safety and Compliance: Monitor yields, solvent loss, energy, labour, waste and rework. Implement improvements using mass balances and root-cause analysis. Enforce GMP, HACCP, FSSC 22000, sanitation, calibration, documentation, solvent & chemical safety, fire protection, PPE and environmental controls.
- People and Reporting: Recruit, train and supervise production, finished-goods and maintenance teams; prepare rosters, define responsibilities and assess performance. Maintain accurate batch, stock, maintenance and production records and provide timely reports.
Qualifications, Experience and Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering or Chemical and Process Engineering is mandatory.
- Minimum of 7 years of relevant manufacturing experience, including 3 years in factory, production, plant or operations management.
- Practical knowledge of solvent extraction, distillation, evaporation, recovery, filtration, crystallization, drying and blending, including selection of solvents and conditions for different spices.
- Knowledge of wet (Soxhlet/reflux extraction & distillation) and dry (HPLC, GC-FID/HS & UV-spectrophotometry) lab testing essential.
- Strong understanding of mass and energy balances, heat transfer, vacuum systems, fluid flow, separation processes, solvent safety and scale-up.
- Ability to use laboratory results for production, troubleshooting and blending decisions.
- Strong leadership, numerical, problem-solving, documentation and Excel skills, with good written and spoken English.
- Able to work in Palapathwala, Matale and respond to urgent plant issues outside normal hours when required.
Send your CV to careers@aberdeenholding.com