Job Description for Maintenance Electrician

darrenj

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Join Date
Feb 2005
Location
Ottawa
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Just wondering if any one has a rough job description for a plant electrician.

The plant i Fill in for when there sparky is off is looking for a new electrician.(Theres left last week) they have asked me to help them with a job description.

Its a little hard for me because i am a "get it fixed"guy for them not a "what should we do with this" guy..

the person they are looking for will be responsible for all day to day operations, PLC modifications (This occurs daily) HMI modifications, Plus all other day to day electrical...

any suggestions?

Thanks

D
 
I would not be too suprised, if you are then not been in the real world enough.

Many plants have to change their process on an almost daily procedure because of differences in the "menu" of the product or changes in the process procedures. For that matter some places change out machinery on a daily basis with the products being produced also changing with each change.

In many cases the "operators" do not have enough information for the variables but the "techs" become aware of them fast; therefore have to make the changes.

There are so many variables out there that at times not even a hoard of engineers can make it easy.
 
Maybe I've been working in the wrong industries.

Major car manufacturer 10 years - minor changes occasionally.

Major Food manufacturer 3 years - minor changes occasionally.

Another Major Food manufacturer 6.5 years - minor changes occassionally.

I was an electrician in only the first but responsible for software in the others, the electricians would not make daily changes to software anywhere I've worked. Not in the 10 years+ as a contractor either.

Yes change-overs were made, in food daily, usually done by process techs on the HMI. If they had to revert to making software changes 'daily', then there's something seriously wrong with their systems.

Electricians who are interested and good enough get brought along with small projects, as happened with me. But I have never worked in an environment where electricians are expected to make daily changes to the working system.

Quite the reverse, in most cases the software is strickly controlled and software change procedures are in place to ensure the integrity of the system. Especially food!
 
Where I am currently working it's not unusual to have a queue of 3 people waiting to make changes to various PLC's on the plant programming terminal (laptop running SeimensTi and S7) It is an old plant part of the work is temp. bridging out defective field instruments and the rest is production constantly trying to improve process.

I dream of a plant like this.."Quite the reverse, in most cases the software is strickly controlled and software change procedures are in place to ensure the integrity of the system. Especially food!"
 
I dream of a plant like this.."Quite the reverse said:
Go work in a pharmaceutical plant here in the US. You're not going to make any program changes until you write a change control document, get 5 different people th sign it, and schedule a shutdown to do your programming changes. On top of that, there may be meetings, writing SOP's, training operators, etc...
Click to expand...
 
The wide range of experiences expressed just in this thread is the main reason why this site is such a treasured resource.

I doubt that my experience would be very relevant though. Our plant is an OEM providing custom equipment. I work with a variety of electrical equipment and PLCs sometimes speced by our customers. The main qualification for our establishment is flexability. The time betweeen the arrival of an unexpected type of equipment and its installation and operation may be just hours though usually I have the luxury of at least a few days. Gotta be a quick reader. Love Google. No time for no 'stinkin' classes.
 
Plant Electrician?

In Canada there is no designation for plant electician. Our plant hired construction electricians for improvements and projects, now they expect these guys to troubleshoot machines. The guys on the floor have less senority, now we have a problem....The idea that an electrician is an electrician is very expensive.... some guys just love the trouble shooting and others the installation and planning. Hire for what you want. A trouble shooter or the by the code installation guy.
 
rsdoran said:
Does the "electrician" have to be licensed journeyman or ? It makes a difference.
Click to expand...

FYI in Canada you are not allowed to call yourself an electrician unless you have Journeyman status. Some try though....
 
Masters degree in electrical engineering, 15 years experience, 20 to 30 years old, willing to work for minimum wage 60 or more hours per week (will only get paid for 40 hours).
H1B visa or good Green Card replica will do.
 
I am a plant electrician.
I have a 2 year electronic technician diploma from community college.
I have an Industrial Electrician Journeymans license.

To fill our position you need college diploma in one of electronics, electrical, instumentation plus journeyman electricians license.
We usually will sponser a good candidate as an apprentice to acheive this.

If you want to know how much exposure we have to PLCs on daily basis, it would be the odd day I didn't log on to troubleshoot or make minor changes, let alone take on complete PLC installation projects on new equipment and retrofitting old stuff. Usually an operator will come to me and ask if the machine could be made to do this or that. I make recommendations to my supervisor if change is extensive or take responsibility for minor changes if the need is obvious. But then again, I make cement not food or drugs.

Brian.
 
Sliver said:
it would be the odd day I didn't log on to troubleshoot or make minor changes.
Click to expand...

Hi Brain,

What size of plant to you work at? I have between 50 and 75 PLCs in this plant and I get into 1 a week at most(and that was because I was board)

I just can't see how you would need to make changes every day...

Not that I don't believe you, because I do, but that seem like a lot, just wondering why
 
geniusintraining said:
Hi Brain,

What size of plant to you work at? I have between 50 and 75 PLCs in this plant and I get into 1 a week at most(and that was because I was board)

I just can't see how you would need to make changes every day...

Not that I don't believe you, because I do, but that seem like a lot, just wondering why
Click to expand...

I have seen this occur in plants where no one really understands what the PLCs are doing, they just know, " whenever the program hangs at this condition, toggle this bit to advance the program"

This usually happens in places where an integrator never finished the job.

Ian
 

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