OT - Training apprentices

So, I'm sure many of you train apprentices or new hires.

I currently have 4 apprentices all <22 years old.

We have an R&D project that I'm currently working on. In my opinion quite interesting, LiDar sensors, 3D modeling within a PLC. I would consider it fairly advanced. I have a system now up an running in TIA portal (we predominantly use siemens).

I emailed the apprentices today. if anyone would like to step out an take a shot at writing the code with my guidance on an older S7-300/400 processor. My current system uses SCL, whereas a lot of older equipment using S7 doesn't have a license for this.

All have made excuses not to do it.

There's no hierarchy issue. If I need an apprentice, an they're available, their supervisor makes the allowance. So I would make available for training. I spoke to him earlier an he is all for it. Will make any time allowance necessary.

If I were in their shoes, I would've jumped at the chance to learn from a senior engineer.

Anyone else have similar issues, how'd you deal with it?

Anyone else facing this issue?

get new apprentices, i.e. who want to learn, and are not afraid to fail.

First question is what level of apprentice are we talking about? If they are first or second year, I could see them being gun shy about getting involved.


Bubba.

What you're asking for is more what I'd be expecting a Mechatronics or electrical engineering intern to jump at. Not an electrical apprentice.

I find 99% of electrical apprentices are still not really that sure if they want a trade. There's more interesting things like girls and hanging out with their friends. Takes a few years to mature to the point where they become a great sparkie because they develop that interest in making things work... or just an average one who is happy to wire houses all day every day.

Good luck. I've found the only ones who really take to it are the ones who say "this is awesome, can i take it home and work on it tonight??"

where i am currently working, i also have a hard time getting the 18-25 year olds to listen. even when it comes to telling them why we test the voltage after panel main disconnect is off. Why - the blade may have broken in the on position. i had that happen to a new disconnect the 2nd time i operated it and got bit good. i won't forget that day. things i picked up in 30+ years of doing this, they don't care about, they know everything.
james

I have found they either want to learn plc programming or they don't.
That does not mean the ones that don't aren't any good - they often make brilliant electricians/engineers.
It's a type of brain thing. Left V right if you like.

Some take to logic like ducks to water and others just can't take it in.
Nothing to do with intelligence or aptitude, it horses for courses.

For instance, I had a partner in business and we did a lot of new machine building.
He was fantastic at plotting out cable runs and wiring and connecting - he was a brilliant electrician.
Didn't want to know about programming. I tried several times. The partnership worked very well like that
He used to call me a laptop sparky.

The only one < 22 years I have ever encountered that was any good was a female apprentice - she had a point to prove because all the males gave her ****! She was way better than any of them - and looked great in shorts and steel toed boots! Should not have said that but she did. She is now in her 30's and designing and programming very complex systems. We still keep in touch - she is now way more advanced than me and I have been doing PLCs since the 1980's - read key pad on the front of the processor and mnemonics!

Maybe they have read that once they touch an old system/machine its their problem now, so they want to avoid "old ****" to keep working on the new and shiny (TM)..

In my experience you get the ones who can't be bothered/know everything already or you get shy kids who lack a bit of confidence and sometimes need a shove/kick/gentle word to get them started.

Too many places take a blanket approach these days as they are scared of discrimination but if you offer all of them the chance then they can't complain.

Maybe you have sold it to them at too high a level and they feel out of their depth. Try again with a 'help me out' angle rather than 'have a go'.

Sounds fun, I'd have a go but then I've got 30 years experience as a statement list programmer. Not knowing what level your apprentices are currently at, maybe it was just so far beyond their current understanding that they didn't see any way to succeed?

Some people get involved and seek knowledge while other expect to be told stuff. I remeber one young engineer I worked with who proclaimed he wanted to learn programming. He had been working in an office full of programmers and surrounded by PLC's for two years but hadn't made any effort to learn anything on his own.

I still start people off with the traffic light challenge and they either get it or they don't.

Nick

What I have found works best for me (so far) is giving clear goals but not clear instructions on how to get there. It is a balance for each person and you have to make adjustments but I think it's best to give them something that is just out of their reach so that they have to learn something to complete the task.

Also, throwing out a blanket request to 4 young peers was probably never going to work. They are all going to be afraid to fail in the other's eyes. If you still want to give them a go, you can try giving them each a separate clear target but not a full roadmap on how to get to each goal. If you set it up right it could be a friendly competition where they all have separate goals and then feel compelled to show progress to keep up with their peers instead of one sticking their neck out by themselves.

Never say or even hint that anything is hard or confusing (even if you think it is) just that it is expected and always present things in a way that you expect them to do it and to be able to do it.

Also, it's very hard to let people fail and learn from that. Our instincts are to rush in at the first mistake and show them what they did wrong and how to fix it. I try to let them keep going (if not harmful to a project) and have found some interesting, creative things can come of that.

Set them up to meet other people and use other resources along the way for instance, "I think Carol G. did something like this, check with her...". But don't give them Carol G's phone extension, email or office location so they have to find that out for themselves. Sometimes I have had to be a little more explicit that yes, I do expect them to find Carol G. on their own and yes, I do expect them to have a conversation with this person that they have never met before. ;-)

For younger people, make them use the phone (the voice phone). Things usually get to a point where they can't figure something out and I tell them to call the tech support for the vendor. Then they spend some hours trying to search the web in vain for an answer. At that point I come back and tell them they HAVE to call tech support and talk to the people there. I don't give them a choice. And this is a continuous process of getting the young ones to call people instead of just googling/emailing. I have had people sit outside my office at their desk and email me instead of just getting up and taking a few steps to ask me a question.

Training is always dynamic and depends both on the trainee and trainer but these are just some of the things I have found work with younger people. And I'm still making mistakes and learning new things along the way.

If they aren't going to find new things to learn, and try new things themselves, then they are likely going to step back from anything new in general.

All the people I've known through the years that were good at what they did and were able to learn new things, never shy'd away from a problem. They may have sat there reading for a while, or scratching their head, but they didn't just give up and walk away or try to hide from it.



You could force one or two to do it, and they might pick up a few things, but in my experience if someone is not interested in what they are doing, they won't pick up anything knowledge-wise from it.

Saffa said:

What you're asking for is more what I'd be expecting a Mechatronics or electrical engineering intern to jump at. Not an electrical apprentice.

I find 99% of electrical apprentices are still not really that sure if they want a trade. There's more interesting things like girls and hanging out with their friends. Takes a few years to mature to the point where they become a great sparkie because they develop that interest in making things work... or just an average one who is happy to wire houses all day every day.

Good luck. I've found the only ones who really take to it are the ones who say "this is awesome, can i take it home and work on it tonight??"

Click to expand...

That was me... I was on a PLC from my very first day of apprenticeship and every day after and still 23 years later. They taught me the basics of PLC controls In conjunction with hard wired controls. Even had some 347VAC controls there back then. They set me up with a PLC5 and a laptop to practice on. Best experience I could have stumbled upon! I didn't even know what a PLC was up to that point.

bb76 said:

In my experience you get the ones who can't be bothered/know everything already or you get shy kids who lack a bit of confidence and sometimes need a shove/kick/gentle word to get them started.

Click to expand...

This was certainly me when I was working as an instrumentation apprentice in the oil industry 10 years ago on the construction side. It's not that I didn't care or wasn't interested, I was afraid of messing something up and/or looking like an idiot. Now I'm very much the opposite, I'll dive into anything and (usually) know how to safeguard against doing any real damage, as far as typical projects go (pumping stations, conveyors etc). It just takes a bit of experience to learn what'll come back to bite you and how to account for it.

+1 to nzeid1

Don't send them to Allen Bradley (or whatever) training right away before they've had some exposure to the process. They need to have some frame of reference to see the value of and keep interest in the training.

I agree very much with never saying that something is difficult. This generation is not used to long-term thinking about a process and they give up way to easily.

Try to get them thinking in brand-independent terms. The class outline at corsairhmi.com may help with this.

A few (probably controversial) suggestions:

Make sure that they understand how to build a one-shot using contacts and coils - a separate history relay. This starts them thinking about the scanning nature of the logic. It is not and it never was a relay schematic. This will help their understanding of how the PLC instruction set works.

Don't use TOF timers. Build everything from TONs.

No Latch/Unlatch Set/Reset coils without permission from you.

NO NO 'MCR' master control relay instructions.

No counter instructions (gasp!). One-shot into additions and use comparisons for decodes instead.

Ladder where it makes sense. SFC where it makes sense. ST where it makes sense. FBD where it makes sense. IL never did make sense.

All code (especially SFC) needs to be examined for behavior on power failure and restart. Data retention on variables needs to be examined.

Discuss and review state-transition diagrams as needed before writing ladder code. If the first thing that they do is to start frantically typing rungs they'll get into trouble. Reach for pen and paper before the keyboard. I usually find that I have to tell them to bring a pen ...




We had a promising young engineer quit because he was hitting the energy drinks too hard on a startup. For every 10% they pick you up for 5 minutes they let you down 50% for hours. He showed up 4 hours late, I lit into him, and he quit a day later. They don't recover well from a reaming - they tend to run from pressure. This guy lost a sweet $70k+ job because of caffeine.

Hopefully their first startups can be less stressful in-shop experiences.