Operation research scientist

Syngenta Seeds is one of the world's largest developers and producers of seed for farmers, commercial growers, retailers and small seed companies. Syngenta seeds improve the quality and yields of crops. High-quality seeds ensure better and more productive crops, which is why farmers invest in them. Advanced seeds help mitigate risks such as disease and drought and allow farmers to grow food using less land, less water and fewer inputs.

Syngenta Seeds brings farmers more vigorous, stronger, resistant plants, including innovative hybrid varieties and biotech crops that can thrive even in challenging growing conditions.

Syngenta Seeds is headquartered in the United States.

Role purpose

This role focuses on complex business processes and operations within Seed Research & Development. This role will identify inefficiencies and harmonize workflows across global sites in Trialing and nursery. This role will define and implement global KPI s for cost, cycle time, throughput and quality, enabling benchmarking across geographies. This role supports short-term efficiency gains and long-term innovation scalability. The role drives operational efficiency and effectiveness by developing, implementing, and maintaining algorithmic solutions based on Operations Research / Mathematical Optimization techniques.  

Accountabilities

• Build and implement optimization models, multi-objective and robust optimization techniques.
• Design and create user-friendly GUIs (Graphical user interface), reports, and data visualizations to facilitate the execution of data-driven optimization models and scenario comparisons by the end-user.
• Identify relevant business KPIs and metrics that drive optimization objectives.
• Run simulations to validate optimization models.
• Manage projects focused on the development and implementation of optimization solutions to support strategic decisions and day-to-day operations.
• Collaborate with various departments and communicate effectively with line-of-business end-users to review current operational systems and business procedures within seeds development, discover pain points, and identify mathematical optimization use-cases.
• Prepare management reports that clearly define and analyze issues and recommend solutions to help management make informed decisions.
• Discuss and analyze the impact of Operations Research solutions with different stakeholders such as managers and subject matter experts across the various departments.
• Follow an agile way of working.
• Contribute to the development of technical training offerings and curricula to support effective implementation and awareness of Operations Research capabilities.
• Defines the operation research, operation standards and will ensure that all procedures are followed.
• Accountable for the results of the operations research projects from respective countries across Tropics
• Needs to work very closely with the Trialing, nursery, Germplasm development and the DH teams across Tropics RD organisation.

• 5+ years demonstrable applied experience in implementation of Operations or lab functions
• A proven track record on working in a science-based environment

Critical technical, professional, and personal capabilities

• Ability to work in teams and across geographies
• Problem-solving skills – identify complex business problems, evaluate the application of Operations Research techniques, and implement decision-support solutions
• Experience with programming languages such as C/C++/C#, Python
• Some experience in data visualization with Tableau, Power BI, or similar
• Strong written and oral English communication skills
• Analytical Mind-set