Chemical Production Machine Operator
What the work is
Operates machines to produce chemical goods such as soaps, detergents, pharmaceuticals, toiletries and explosives.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Sets up and prepares machines to produce chemical goods
- Measures the ingredients used in chemical products to be mixed and blended
- Operates crushing machines or mills to grind and pulverise solid chemicals and other materials to a specified size suitable for processing
- Monitors the removal of the ground product from machines, and inspects and tests samples of products for quality and consistency
- Performs regular checks and basic maintenance on processing machines, and reports any faults
- Follows safety procedures and guidelines to ensure a safe working environment
- Records production data and maintains production logs
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in the sterile services department of a fictional regional hospital, plus a stone benchtop workshop in the same town. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- Every tray goes out to theatre complete, clean and checked, with time to spare
- A slab of stone is cut so cleanly that the join between two pieces is hard to see
- A busy day ends with nothing missing and the whole team sitting down for lunch
Hard days
- An urgent request arrives for something that cannot be made safe any faster
- Hours standing, wearing protective gear, in a warm and noisy room
- A counted set that comes back with something missing and no obvious reason
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 731931, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.