Mechanical Maintenance Engineer-Soda Ash Plant
Pros
Instead of listing things, I will only give a general overview. The Bhavnagar site of Nirma has four seperate units- Soda Ash, Caustic Soda, Oleo-chemical unit, Power plant-utility. I worked in Soda Ash. only things I found useful in soda ash unit are as follows - An engineer gets to work in a fairly modern design, good equipments and a good technical challenge.
Cons
Only pertaining to soda ash. 1. The plant is extremely challenging in terms of dust, effluents and its effects on your health. After leaving Nirma, I've worked overseas in similar plants and they have far superior dust and effluent management strategies. 2. Safety culture is practically non-existant. Permit system exists, but they still function in non-computerised era and do not have multiple layers of verification. 3. Over reliance on GETs. Due to High Attrition Rate, middle management is largely made of GETs, who know nothing, but work the hardest. 4. Arrogant and un-cooperational Lower staff, i.e technicians and tradesmen. Compared to better companies I've worked in , lower staff is very tepid and petulant. Will extend useless jobs to earn more overtime. 5. Near to no prospects of growth in the company. There is very less prospect of career growth in terms of promotions, learning and general trajectory of individual growth.
