schooling

Hi besides BCIT where else can you take a course for PLC???

Rockwell Automation Canada (& USA) offers courses.
Follow link for list of courses & locations:
http://www.rockwellautomation.ca/applications/gs/na/GSCAN.nsf/pages/Training

http://www.rockwellautomation.ca/

school

Sure, here are some but not all... CNC in Prince George, SAIT in Calgary, NAIT in Edmonton, and the old school of hard knocks... (experience) .There may be also One or two on the open learning institute on the web.. There are courses supplied also by each manufacturer.

Bruce

Hi there thanks for the info. I had the allen bradley rxlogics 5000 tutorial disk. If I learn this is it enough to get hired by a company? thanks

ms.cutiebum said:

Hi there thanks for the info. I had the allen bradley rxlogics 5000 tutorial disk. If I learn this is it enough to get hired by a company? thanks

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Not likely, if you are talking PLC work. But if you are a good electrican or engineer you can get your foot in the door somewhere and hang around the PLC guy.

You don't say what country you are in much less locale. I will assume USA.

Try your local community college. There are (or maybe were ?) several in Seattle area that had PLC courses.

Dan Bentler

doh....

I should have looked for the Canadian flag. Uh will fatigue let me off the stupid hook?

It strikes me as ridiculous that the PLC industry which has a supposed
shortage of skilled technicians/engineers makes it so difficult for new
people to get in.As one reply said you have to first get a foot in the door and then 'hang around the PLC guy'.If the industry is desperate for people then
why havent they a structured intake with training and progression?

If the industry is desperate for people then why havent they a structured intake with training and progression?

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Answer: because of the high cost of education. Here in Belgium we teach the unemployed in an effort to get them a job. Courses range from cleaning up to industrial automation, nursing and so on. I'm working for the Flemish Public Employment Service (VDAB) , which provides in more than 1100 different courses for the unemployed, as a trainer for PLC and SCADA systems. In the end, the government takes the cost and industry gets the results.

Kind regards,

Guest said:

If the industry is desperate for people then why havent they a structured intake with training and progression?

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The absolute last thing we need is academia or government establishing a program to train and introduce people into a field that they know little about and whose manpower requirements nobody can predict. After all, these are the kinds of fellows that developed the HNC instruction process for PLCs that we are so impresssed with!

I want to stress that this is not a criticism of competent and caring instructors that do the actual teaching. I've met and worked with a number of these guys, and I admire them. It is a critcism of the kind of bureaucratic mind that would be in charge of creating the system you describe.

Any field has problems getting new people an opportunity to break into it. That may be especially true of technical fields, but that's because the consequences of error are so significant (can you spell Chernobyl, or even DIA?)

I wish I had an answer to the problem. I personally like to get entry level staff and train them in MY way of doing things, but it absolutely is an investment and a gamble. It probably doesn't make sense economically, which is why so few businesses do it. I do, however, get a great deal of personal satisfaction looking at a number of very competent engineers and technicians that I feel I helped get started. Money isn't everything!

Hi,

In answer to both Jvcande and Tom I understand your points of view and especially Toms reticence to goverment interference in the training of PLC
people.To Jvcande I would say how lucky you are to have training in Automation for the unemployed and goverment sponsored too.In England
courses in Engineering for the unemployed have virtually dissappeared years ago and what courses are left are in the buisness management or general
office type areas.Nothing really specific where you actually produce something but just waffle.
With reference to Toms points I think you would have to admit that the
employers have given up on the training of its people and would much
prefere to pilfer the trained people from other companies.Compared to the 60's and early 70's when it was common for companies to train.One gets
the impression from a lot of managers that its not their concern to train their people and that by magic they will appear when required.If industry is to have a future then it must invest in people and in cooperation with goverment
via grants and provision of proper college courses designed by industry
advisers-i.e. people that work in the field-then maybe its the way to go.

ms.cutiebum said:

Hi there thanks for the info. I had the allen bradley rxlogics 5000 tutorial disk. If I learn this is it enough to get hired by a company? thanks

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...I have MS flight simulator cd - if I learn this is it enough to get hired by an airline?

school

Gerry, I once flew in a dash-8 from Cranbrook to Calgary, the pilot was in his mid twenties, and the flight was fine, it was the landing that took 5 years off my life. Im sure that CD was his only training.... LOL... My poor wife was green as we staggared off the plane half smiling and half searching for the nearest bathroom. Bruce

Guest said:

If industry is to have a future then it must invest in people and in cooperation with goverment
via grants and provision of proper college courses designed by industry
advisers-i.e. people that work in the field-then maybe its the way to go.

Click to expand...

The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) mentioned in the first post was set up in this very fashion in the early 1960's. Graduates are meant to be immediately useful to employers, with practical skills as well as theoretical knowledge. I don't know what it's like now, but when I was there (1966-68) the courses were an intensive 2 years (35 hours/week, 9 months/year). For my Electrical & Electronics class only 1 in 3 applicants were accepted for the course and of those only 50% graduated. Consequently, no graduate was short of job offers.
If Ms cutiebum can hack the pace, she/he/it would benefit immensely from attending BCIT and learn far more than PLC programming.