Posts have peaked my curiosity...

Many of the posts in this forum leave me curious/jealous of the position that many of you apparently hold. I currently work for a general contractor that specializes in Water/Waste Water. Every job I get in this industry has a spec, usually 3-6 inches thick defining by part number every PLC, Module, Device, Instrument, labeling, interlocks, control description and AOI's/DFB's (code examples). The only input I have is panel layout, power requirements, fusing, thermo-management and sometimes code structure. In my factory life (airbags), every process had an SOP, Control Description, O&M's, standardized AOI's/DFB's.

I would like to know what industry(s) I have been overlooking that gives you all the freedom that I see in the posts. I would love to win a contract that gives me the ability to insist that I use an AB drive with an AB PLC or to design and build production equipment as the controls engineer, choosing my preferred parts and developing my own control description.

Many smaller companies that lack engineering departments rely on and trust the knowledge of the controls company they contract for projects. This allows the contractor to use the products they feel fit the application best. There is also a risk the contractor will only use what they are comfortable with and force fit the wrong product as the solution. This can also be a problem with extremely restrictive specifications.

By the way, the correct word is piqued, not peaked.

Archie,

Couldn't agree more regarding restrictive spec's. And I understand the farmer John project that comes across the desk every so often. But to making the process and budgetary decisions that some of these guys seem to be making blows my mind.

Food/Dairy/Beverage gives plenty of flexibility. Exceptions are big name companies that realize the value of automation, but even here there will be variation. Some have in-depth standardization that they control and you simply have to provide exactly what they want. Others have general standards, where they say it must be AB PLCs, AB IO, AB Drives, AB Scada...etc. Others "money talks" and the spec gets pushed under the rug if it means saving money.

Automotive companies and especially car makers are usually the one where you have less freedom. They are mammoth and will waste a lot of money for "standardization". I have seen them imposing a S7-319 Profisafe CPU on a tiny manual installation juste because it's "the standard".

On the other hand, companies that develop and sell standardized machines in serial have more freedom since the customer is already buying a final solution.

I work in a very relaxed wood door plant. I was hired as a controls tech and they let me decide what to use. As long as I keep the machines running they are happy. Occasionally I am able to increase the speed of a machine or make it more efficient, which makes them even happier. $$$

I've been in water/wastewater for almost 40 years. This industry, and perhaps power generation, have the most restrictive and detailed automation specs of any industry. It is because the contract documents are written by essentially civil engineering firms, and they use the same format for automation that was developed generations ago for controlling contractors installing curb and gutter.

The situation is made worse by the fact that they are spending public money and subject to public scrutiny. In private industry, spending their own money, they can do things any way they feel will provide the most bang for the buck. In public works cost effectiveness often comes way behind the engineer not getting in trouble.

Tom,

You're the voice of veracity.

How true, how true.

Dan

Tom Jenkins said:

In public works cost effectiveness often comes way behind the engineer not getting in trouble.

Click to expand...

CYA rules this industry!

We have a situation where we have a lot of individuals in our company that are highly motivated and pretty sharp at what they do. We are given freedom to design our projects to fit our needs and are consulted for most major purchases.

Lots of new management lately have been skipping this step and it has cost us a LOT of money. They are learning though. It is kind of cool for me, being fairly new to the field and having proven myself I'm pretty much free to attack a project however I would like to. All of that test benching really paid off for me.

Don't like restrictions? Stay away from oil & gas.

AGill said:

Don't like restrictions? Stay away from oil & gas.

Click to expand...

or aerospace!

I'm also in water/wastewater. It's all over the map here. We have good relationships with a couple of engineering firms that will basically trust us to do out thing our way.

On most bid jobs the specs are cut'n'paste and horrible. We recently looked at a spec that demanded floppy disk drives and Windows 3.11 or newer. Some of them (10%) are well written and sensible. Most of them are so fouled up that we basically end up having to raise our bid just in case they really end up holding us to the stupid stuff they put in black and white.

Most of our work is small jobs that don't require bidding and we have so many customers who keep us busy we could work 16 hour days endlessly and stay behind.

If I interpret the OP's question correctly, what I think he really wants (in order to achieve his stated goal) is to work as the lead tech at a municipal water/wastewater plant. I did that for almost 21 years, and had total latitude in selecting equipment, etc. They would dream-up some bell or whistle they wanted to add, or they'd want a better way to meet constantly tightening regulations, and I'd be turned loose. Sometimes I asked if time or money was the priority, but it was nearly ALWAYS quality that mattered most.

Admittedly, I had it good! But those jobs do exist.