In plant training programs for maintenance personnel.Any ideas or success stories?

Cydog

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Feb 2018
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Maryland
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Good Evening ,

I'm sure this subject has come up a few times. I know that every manufacture is having a hard time finding good maintenance technicians .
What my plan is , is to train our maintenance mechanics that we have now.
I want to set up a lab in our plant , and train them with the automation equipment that we actually have in our plant . If we train our own , we are able to see their progress , directly , and know what areas need more focus.
I would also like them to have lab projects that they can see positive results.

Do you guys know of any programs that are already prepared and being used that are successful ?

Thanks so much for your thoughts , and ideas .
 
I teach short (3 day classes at a local community college.
While there various on-line training programs that allow individuals to learn on their own, it is hard to match the quality of instructor led classroom teaching. The instructor also needs to be cautious about over using power point type presentations. Students will lose focus and not take notes. Approximately 50% of the time used for hands-on meaningful projects or labs is a good balance.
Teaching them on the automation equipment used in your plant is good, just make sure they get the basics and necessary background first.
 
The problem I think you will encounter is that is hard to to get people to disconnect from work mode, and go into training mode, and then back again. Where I work, I have set up a processor with D-Net, E-Net, an HMI, and a Cognex camera, and started small projects that will help develop skills. It has been setup and available for over a year and you could count on one hand how many hours it has been used by the other 5 people in our shop. If there is a problem with a camera, or an HMI, or DeviceNet, the cure is always the same. Call somebody, because I don't know anything about it. I asked my boss to buy me some equipment to setup a small servo motor test and training station, and was denied. It was never said, but I think part of the decision was that the equipment we have for training now gets so little use, why spend the money on more? This is not unique to this shop. I have found the same thing to be true at several other places I have worked. If you are lucky, you might get one person that will take the initiative to explore and learn on their own. I hate to speak in generalities, but we Bubbas, as a group, are fundamentally lazy. There are certainly exceptions, but they are the ones that prove the rule.

So what does work? Offer to cover 100% of the cost of formal training for your techs. If somebody takes you up on the offer, send them to a formal class, and evaluate their performance after the class. If they retain what they learned, and can apply it to the workplace, then you know you have found a person that should be sent for training at least once a year, or more. Don't require formal training. If you have to force them to go, it will not do them or you any good. To use myself as an example, I have been to 5 Rockwell classes, and I can tell you that without them, I would be able to do a lot of the things I can today. Yes, those classes are expensive, but as a wise man once said, "Ignorance is where the real money is at". I can say with certainty that those classes have returned more than 10x what was paid for them.

Good techs are very hard to find, and I wish you the best of luck, but I have never seen an internal training program that was truly effective. I'm sure you will get some different opinions, so this is just my take on the subject based on my own 30 years in the trade.

Bubba.
 
I agree to train your own people


Not everyone wants to be trained or has the intellect


I can remember a maintenance guy who went on a PLC programming course 2 times and he still couldnt understand anything


Try simple one hour modules like how to get online, how to search, and basic things


Then basic editing



Then you can think about timers, counters, maths instructions etc and build up to sequence controls
 
I can remember a maintenance guy who went on a PLC programming course 2 times and he still couldnt understand anything

This reminds me of a trainee I had learning PLC's from me. He was chosen for the job because he knew electricity.
Couldn't grasp the concept of integers and floating point numbers... needless to say he is now a happy engineer designing electrical distribution networks.
 
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I work at a company that once sent 6 people on a PLC course at great expense.
There had been a lot of grumblings that they had 2 electricians on site and yet - still had to call me with PLC problems and program alterations.

So 2 sparkies and 2 engineers and 2 management went on the 1 week beginners course.

The 2 management left before day 1 was out.
2 engineers the next day
and the sparkies the next.

You can't put in what God left out.

It's never mentioned..... and the status quo is resumed.
 
Where I worked before (large manufacturing plant) we decided, when the workforce was going onto multi-skilling, that we would train our own guys in electrics, PLCs and control systems.

External courses were either too long, or the wrong focus for us, and if we wanted a bespoke course, we had to tell them what we wanted and give them lots of info beforehand, so we might as well do it ourselves. 20 years on, and 2 employers further on, the situation is much the same....

so way back then, we spent time and money buying PLC5 kit for training, and using some old broken parts, took the guys through the basics of ladder logic and PLC programming, but focussed on the things they would be doing.
Then went onto the hardware and set up racks running normally, then told them to go for tea, then added in some faults - hardware and software, based on what we had just taught them, then told them to fault find, based on what the Production People would say to them - "this valve is not opening", "that prox sensor is not making".

It all worked very well, and hopefully they managed to learn stuff that was useful. We did have about 20 people to train that way in a short space of time.

Nowadays, there appears to be more focus on the programming side and diagnostics online, so the guys we have now need a bit more one to one.
Again, we have a room with various PLC racks setup - PLC5 and ControlLogix with various networks, and they will come over for a 4 hour session. Sometimes there is enthusiasm, and with others it tails away.....

Difficult to know how to tackle it sometimes.

I uses the training room as a man-cave to setup new projects or try things that I would not get a chance to do on the plant. I acquired an ABB VSD demo box a few tears ago, that was not 100% functional, to me that would help the guys with how they work. We shall see...
 
I know soooo many older(50+) maintenance people that if you mention PLC or Automation their eyes will roll back in their head.

They want NO part of it! (So don't try to train people with a ball and chain tied to them). That will be a waste of both parties time and money!

If they WANT to learn they will, you might help by providing "Computer Course Links", a local college night class once a week, buy a "Home Study Course" and then rotate the courses with your staff.

Thought out my 42 years of working in "Microprocessor Based Equipment" I ended up with 4 Associate degrees, about 35 certification papers, and 42 years experience, and the only way I got here was because "I WANTED TO LEARN MYSELF".

Maybe ask your team what they think?

Anyway this is just my opinion!
 
Most of the places I've worked had little to no training. When I got into heavy industrial controls, I had to resort to "knowledge theft" on my co-workers, and basically learn everything on my own. Then there is the money thing, so I was always chasing after more money back 10, 15 years ago. Now the money is good and I like what I do. As far as PLC, I worked for a large utility that basically would NOT send me to any A-B courses because "you will learn much more just doing it". So I have a lot of gaps and there are a few Allen Bradley courses I would like to take. I feel I'm doing well at my job and I'm writing some complex programs that work well. I got my boss to get us a lab, with a PLC, modules, comms, etc. It comes in handy for testing, and I always make time to write myself some kind of challenge and make it work. So in conclusion +1 for damica1, I WANTED to learn. I don't want to be on the plant floor all the time, so I work for an integrator. I hate lighting, and don't want to do construction any more. So I have to learn on my own initiative to get the jobs I want. Very little opportunities for training.
 
You can't put in what God left out.

Now thats funny, sad and true....

That said you may want to have different level classes, one for some that knows and wants to learn and one for others that think they know and want a paycheck

I like the 'inhouse' idea because you can specify on your equipment and so they learn and get comfortable with your equipment and not just something "close" there is a lot of time wasted trying to figure out the differences from the classroom PLC and the real world machine

Give them test, test their knowledge before and after in written and practical then you know what you need to teach them

Then at the end if someone thinks they know everything... toss them on nights and let them figure out that they still need to learn :)
 

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