plc programers taken for granted

good evening everyone. I am fairly new here but I am finding I love this place alot..excellent questions and a whole lot of people helping. I am about 6 months in a new job of Robotic Tech, and I have been going through all the old programming of the machinery (Allen Bradley SLC 500,1,2,3,4, Micrologix and Omrom) and cleaning them up ALOT! I beleive a good plc progrmmer is invaluable to a company and most people cannot appreciate all the effort that is put forth to compile a descent ladder logic program that will catch everyone else's screwups!
I am not reconized as a skilled tradesman but the knowledge i posses should be just as important to my company as a millwright, tool and die or machinist. I admire all of you because I also sit here hour after hour programming logic into a computer only to have most of my work go unappriciated and taken for granted.
I cannot wait to get stuck so I can post a question.
Anyone in to rpc code on built in plc in nachi robots?

bakerboy_99ca said:

I am not reconized as a skilled tradesman but the knowledge i posses should be just as important to my company as a millwright, tool and die or machinist.

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To a lot people a PLC is a black box affair; they only see the result, not the elegant, compact, rugged, documented code - or conversely, the rickety, cryptic house of cards inside - that made it happen. I've seen both kinds delivered. One is sworn at, the other is sworn by.

In my experience, get used to it. As you indirectly (no pun intended) observe, most of your recognition will come from your peers.

Unfortunately, when most people see a piece of production equipment smoothly doing what it is supposed to, they tend to give all the credit to the skills of the mechanical tradesmen who fabricated and assembled it, and ignore the contributions of the people who designed and executed the control system.

Bakerboy, if you haven't already, I guarantee that at some point you'll be asked by the mechanical people to create a software patch to overcome a mechanical deficiency; to 'fix it in software'. At least the people who ask you do things like that recognize the abilities of the control system to make them look good.

One other point about control systems designers and programmers. On new installations, the last person to finish his part of the project is always the controls engineer or technician. During the shakedown period when the controls person is the only one tweaking the system, if a belt breaks or a pneumatic hose gets snagged by the machinery, nobody thinks twice when the controls person makes the repair and gets the line working again. Nobody gives him credit for being able to do it. It's just expected of him. But if an electrical or control system crops up when the only person available is the mechanical technician, the mechanical guy can get away with saying "That's an electrical problem. I don't do electrical stuff."

This is not intended to be a rant against the injustices of the industrial world, simply a statement of the way things are. It's also an explanation of why we in the controls business are justified in feeling so proud of our contributions. After all, we're going to get blamed whenever anything goes wrong, so we might as well take the credit when things go right.

In my trade the techs very much realize and appreciate the skills of the programmer. The often work on older hard-wired totally relay logic equipment, and know how complex the program can get. In our busniess good programmers make more per hour then the regular trades guys.

Maybe you need to assurt yourself some more.

Steve Bailey said:

Unfortunately, when most people see a piece of production equipment smoothly doing what it is supposed to, they tend to give all the credit to the skills of the mechanical tradesmen who fabricated and assembled it, and ignore the contributions of the people who designed and executed the control system.

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And what do they blame first when something goes wrong?

The last few years, I have been called in only to find something mechanical is wrong. There is some satisfaction in that.

Though I do feel a little more appreciated than I used to. As the hardware gets more complex and manufacturing companies have less and less skilled maintenance techs, there is less of an "I can do that" attitude from them.

A real world example of "fix it in the software" happened to me recently.
The equipment is a bulk material stacker that builds a pile with the boom at grade level and raises (with material detection probe)to an operator selected boom high setpoint that uses an angle transducer as boom angle feedback. Once the high setpoint is reached the stacker traverses linearly along a track when material is detected.
There is obviously more to it but that is the basic logic.
A problem arose where the boom would raise up gradually without being controlled. I told mechanical that they should check the hydraulics, check valves, cylinder seals etc. They asked to have the logic correct for any drift.
This is very easily done except that when you do this you are MASKING a mechanical problem and one of Murphy's Laws is that a problem ignored only gets worse.
A compromise was reached when I allowed for drift correction but also sampled the angle over time, ignoring controlled angle changes, and came up with a delta angle/hour value that is trended locally.
The mechanics had visual proof that the problem still existed even though the logic was correcting for it. It spurned the mechanical inpectors to tear down the spare cylinder and find that the 'repairs' being done to the cylinders were of poor quality. A new outfit refurbished the spare cylinder, it was installed and the drift was reduced by over 90%.
The moral of this epic is that if you do mask a mechanical problem give some display of the condition that still exists and will probably worsen.

Brian.

I guarantee that at some point you'll be asked by the mechanical people to create a software patch to overcome a mechanical deficiency

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Hehehe like this week when an hydraulic check valve was leaking slightly and so a 'grab' was dropping down slowly when stood.

I had to do a temp patch (that maybe will stay in forever) to pulse the up valve every now and then to stop it dropping.

Rule of thumb..........

In my 20+ years of doing controls work and PLC programming I can't tell you all the times I have encountered the same situations mentioned here. But one thing I have discovered.....90% of electrical problems are mechanically induced......just a thought.

Most of the appreciation that comes from your work will come from the simple satisfaction in the fact that you have made a piece of equipment function flawlessly. No other person can appreciate the amount of thought and keying of code that went in to making this happen.

I was in this situation once working for a small custom machinery builder. First part of the name of the company...."Automated". Number of people responsible for Automated? 2. Myself and my panel builder in the shop. Mechanical trades people? 15. Appreciation and respect for the job we were doing? 0.

It was so bad that at times we couldn't even get the machines to test prior to customer visits for factory acceptance tests. But when the equipment fired up and ran perfectly without so much as a single dry run do you think we got a pat on the back or a "job well done"? Hell no....
Just constant sneers and comments that we don't do anything to contribute.

As stated earlier......no person outside of your field can appreciate what goes on in that little black box but I will say this I have never been not recognized as possesing a "skill". Looking at how much you are payed in comparison is the only recognition of skill level that there is. If I were making less than a millwright I would be looking for another job. I didn't go to college to make less than a blue collar profession that I work side by side with and you shouldn't be either.

If an company owner/manager is crazy enough to believe that quality comes cheap then he deserves to get what he pays for.


Off my soapbox now,

Dave