Example Achievement Log for a Chemical Engineer

A year in the life of a Chemical Engineer's log

• Feb - task: Started root cause analysis on the C3 splitter's erratic overhead composition. Purity swings between 94 and 98 percent; suspected heat exchanger fouling or reboiler control lag. Set up daily temperature and pressure logs for a month.
• Feb - feedback: Sergio from Operations flagged the splitter instability in the daily standup. Said, "If you can get us back to 98 consistent, that's an extra 2 tonnes a day."
• Mar - achievement: Identified the culprit: thermometer well in the reboiler outlet was clogged with polymer residue, throwing off cascade control. Cleaned, recalibrated, and overhead purity stabilized to 98.2 percent. Held for six weeks straight.
• May - task: Process safety incident: vent valve on the storage tank for recovered solvent failed to seat, slow leak into the warehouse. Smelled it during walkthrough, called it in immediately. HSE investigation, no injuries.
• May - feedback: Rebecca, the Process Safety Manager, told me in the incident debrief, "Your early catch kept this from being a real problem. Good instinct." Later recommended preventive vent audits for all six storage vessels.
• Jun - task: Began documentation and handover prep for the old SCADA system before the June migration to the new DCS. Started with P&ID markup and PLC ladder logic printouts. Found three discrepancies between the diagrams and what was actually running.
• Aug - achievement: Completed SCADA to DCS migration for the benzene recovery unit. Mapped 47 analog inputs, 34 digital outputs, and 12 PID loops. Commissioning took four days; only one tuning loop needed adjustment post-go-live.
• Sep - task: Attended the pilot trial for a new polyol feedstock from the supplier. Ran bench-scale hydrolysis at 65C with the test material. Viscosity was 8 percent lower than expected, which will need reactor dwell time adjustment before scale-up.
• Oct - achievement: Completed the energy audit on the distillation train. Found that switching the reboiler steam trap on the C4 unit to a thermostat model cut condensate backup by 40 percent. Annual saving: 12 tonnes of steam per run cycle.
• Nov - task: Moisture ingress detected in the vacuum pump discharge line during routine maintenance. Traced to a cracked fitting that I'd missed in March's visual inspection. Replaced the whole section and added humidity monitoring to the checklist.
• Dec - feedback: In the ops review, Sergio said the C3 splitter has run at or above 98 percent purity for 270 days straight. "That's the best we've ever had. Keep doing what you're doing."

What makes a strong entry

How this becomes your review in November

This year I drove two major technical improvements to our distillation operations. The C3 splitter purity issue turned out to be a blocked thermometer well throwing off cascade control; after cleaning and recalibrating, overhead stabilized to a consistent 98.2 percent and has now run above that target for 270 consecutive days. I also completed the SCADA to DCS migration for the benzene recovery unit, mapping 47 analog inputs, 34 digital outputs, and 12 PID loops through commissioning with only one post-go-live tuning adjustment needed. In addition, I caught an early safety leak on the solvent storage tank that could have become a warehouse incident, and identified a steam trap inefficiency on the C4 reboiler that will save 12 tonnes per cycle annually.

Starting your own log

Don't try to reconstruct a year you have already had. Start from today, one line whenever something happens, and let it build. The Perform Review Achievement Log does this for you and can capture wins straight from Slack, and how to start an achievement log covers the wider playbook.

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