Engineering Degrees

Greg Dake

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I remember reading, I THINK in "Control Engineering" magazine several months back, which engineering dicipline individuals in the "controls/PLC" field held engineering degrees in. I was surprised that Chemical engineers were the majority over all the other engineering fields. I always assumed electrical, mechanical, and possibly industrial engineers were the most number of degrees attained in the realm of PLC's....Curious if anyone else has the data support ChemE being the most attained degree in our field?

Greg
 
Greg I can agree with your statement.


I would say the majority if the DCS Control Systems Engineers I have met have had Chem Eng or Chem Science degrees. PLC guys seem to Electrical Engineers though.

Then you have the good guys, Electrical or Instrument Techs who have worked their way up
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S7Guy said:
Maybe it's a fluke, but the majority of controls engineers I work with have ME degrees.

I don't think it's a fluke. Most controls make things move and the ME are more educated in this (nothing against EE's though ;) )
 
I will have to think about this one.

ndzied1 said:
I don't think it's a fluke. Most controls make things move and the ME are more educated in this (nothing against EE's though ;) )

I think I make up for a lot of MEs.

What is interesting is this 'new' field called mechatronics. At first I scoffed at the term but I can now see there is a need for the knowledge or discipline so I now think it deserves a name. Our local branch of Washington State University at Vancouver is going to offer a degree in mechatronics before they offer a degree in EE. I think the blending of the fields will be good as long as neither field is diluted. ( Hmmm, how do they do that? )

BTW, we often have customers that need a very good PLC programmer that also understands motion. One of favorite people that we recommend for the jobs that MUST be done right like, lifting spans of the new bay bridge, controlling 350 ton turn tables for the air force etc ,has a chemical engineering degree although I don't think he has ever really done any chemical engineering.

I thought that chemical engineering was one of the hardest majors offered.
 
Funny thing... I didn't even know what a PLC was until I started my most recent job. Studied general engineering and then wound up doing PLC and electrical work for the outfit that I work for now. I am not sure if I am in the majority or the minority interms of the fact that I "fell" into doing PLC stuff... the others that I work will that are doing the same are predominantly EE degreed individuals though...
 
Most processes that Chem E's work with have had PLC/DCS controls for quiter a while. It stands to follow that they need to be PLC capable. Most EE's can program a PLC but do not spend a lot of time typically programming. Some guys just naturally fall into programming and do good at most any PLC type. Then there are us service guys that work on drives and controls that have to occasionally trouble shoot problems where a PLC is utilized. The PLC always gets blamed as it is the "BLACK BOX" most do not understand. It has been my experience over the years that those techs and engineers with good mechanical skills or mechanical types with good electrical skills do well with drives and PLCs.

If there is a mechanical problem, it shows in the electrical. If there is an electrical problem, it shows in the mechanical functions. Being able to determine if it is electrical or mechanical is in its own right a necessary skill.

I have met engineers and programmers that could design and write code, but could not hold a screw driver properly. I have met mechanical engineers and mechanics that seemed almost afraid to turn on anything electrical other than a light.

The industrial engneering degrees being offered these days seem to be combining both electrical and mechanical into one disipline. It is easier to explain how a control works to an IE than some ME's. Mechatronics seems like a natural progression as mechanical devices are usually powered and/or controlled by electrical devices.

Usually the quality of the engineer/tech is based on the pride inside of the individual.
 
Peter Nachtwey said:
I thought that chemical engineering was one of the hardest majors offered.

I rented a room in the ChemE fraternity (alpha chi sigma) in college and had some good ChemE friends. They worked those guys hard.

I took a lot of motion control classes in the EE program and found that we basically had the same formulas. Especially for circuits and piping. Their coeffients were just larger. (Me milliseconds or less, them seconds to minutes)
 
<=== Chem E here. Heard about PLC in school but learned PID control in detail, including making a PID control using equations and control a real level control using our "self-roll" PID control. That was cool. Feed Back/Feed Forward, Laplace transform, transfer function, etc... I never touched motion stuff till recently.

Most Controls guys in the petro/chemical/bio field are Chem E.

Most Controls guys in the assembly/manufacturing field are Mech E or Ind E.

Controls Magazine is more for the process field so i would assume most readers are Chem E.
 

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