OK.. wheres the money at?

[carwashblues]

Thanks

Really appreciate the feedback, it is really helping me with my efforts to seem a little less retarded on the next interview.
I pretty much ignored the automation induustry, I figured a P3 running windows could pretty much handle a bunch of switches and relays, Never thought about working in a factory or had a clue about PLCs.

Ive been watching a series of training videos on youtube and studying the material here, and am starting to get it.

Regarding offshore, I did send BJ services a resume for a instrument style tech job opening just for the very reason Tom brought up.

Getting something out there quickly is impossible sometimes due to weather grounding the helicopters and if the seas kick up enough, no crew boats either.

Thats where my MacGyver like skills of making do with whats available and the ability to diagnose electronics to the component level would seem to be valuable. But if they interview me and ask me what a "oilatronics 9000 oil analyzer" (made that up) is and how to wire it to a plc, I would seem awful dumb. BJs whole world might center on that device, everybody on a platform knows about it and Im trying to get a job working on it, having never before heard of it.

Its a tough sell, theyd rather just hire guy from Halliburton who can get right to work.

Im just going for sheer numbers, inundating the entire state with my resume and hoping all those other guys with the relevant experience will get hired and get out of the job market! No way would I be sucking up unemployment checks when one 12 hour shift pays more than than the weekly check. Im sure if the economy will pick back up some, Some company out there will have to make do with me, Oilatronic 9000 experience or not.

 

[carwashblues]

Thanks Diat thats encouraging. At least Im not exactly spoiled for top dollar pay under the conditions! Im almost to the point of appling for food stamps!

 

[sebraun]

Very interesting topic:
I am an electrical engineer and I turn 62 this year. I started with PLC's back in the late '70's. From early on in my career, I became what I term a "forensic" engineer. A lot of what I do for a living is upgrade older PLC equipment or determine how to add functionality to existing equipment or get things working again. I am frequently appalled at what I find out there. Used to be, courtesy primarily of Allen Bradley, that anyone and everyone programmed a PLC. The problem with this approach? Many times the programming didn't necessarily solve the problem. A few years ago, I was asked to start an integration division for an engineering company. The effort predictably failed because my number one rule was violated.
Rule Number One: Never, never get a programmer to engineer. Always, always get an engineer to program.
This rule does not mandate that you must spend, in my opinion, a lot of misdirected time in college or at university. It simply states that the key to applying PLC solutions is a thorough understanding of the process and only then applying the PLC logic.
If you can do this, you will stay incredibly busy as I have for almost 40 years. $US60K is OK but if you are truly good at what you do in this business, trust me, a lot more can be made.
A PLC contractor friend once told me that he needed to do three things with his business:
1. Get paid on time
2. Sleep well every night
3. Stay out of jail
As a result, his business was tightly focused around keeping his customers happy, delivering a well engineered and quality service or product, and thoroughly understanding the nature of the project. Seems simple but this takes a lot of discipline and work.
And let us not forget Rule Number Two: Business dictates that you must sell a superior product at a cheaper price in order to survive.
This rules states that you must constantly be searching for newer and cheaper solutions to age old problems. The PLC and HMI solutions of 10 years ago don't sell today.
And of course any engineer knows Rule Number Three: Remember, thou art an Engineer and not a Scientist.
Given identical problems to solve, the scientist will inevitably 'produce' a solution that is unique and largely theoretical thereby requiring large expenditures of time and money to validate. The engineer, on the other hand, will 'apply' something off-the-shelf and thoroughly proven.
It truly is not about the hardware and though it may once have appeared so, it never really was about the hardware. It is and always was about processes that made widgets possible and/or cheaper.

 

[carwashblues]

Ive hit a gold mine!

Well not in the sense of a 6 figure job just yet, but really, Im getting a lot of great insight here on PLCs.net. Guys like Sebraun have been at it since the 70s and gotta know what works and what goes by the wayside.

Sebraun since the real money is all about the next efficiency gain in a process, Im thinking a guy might want to specialize. To really become an expert in say the making of trash bags you would want to keep working in those kind of plants?

With all that production data at your fingertips it seems like you could eventually shave some time off a process, or some other improvement like fewer shutdowns or less waste etc.

But if you then took a lucrative job at an aluminum can plant, well youre back to square one, because you have to learn how cans are made and your plastic machine expertise would get rusty. Im just speculating of course.

It seems to me so far you have to be not just a jack but nearly a master of a lot of trades:

1) All things PLC, and PLC related, like tackling all those annoying issues on this forum people post for help with.

2) All machinery and mechanical aspects of manufacturing (which can get pretty complex itself)

3) The process itself (which is a science of its own)

4)) Safety (I shudder to think what a programming blunder could do in a chemical plant)

And all kinds of little things, things like trade secrets? What if you revolutionize trash bag making? Is that considered the Companys property? And of course convincing non-technical management types of your ideas merits and the pitfalls of some of their ideas.


Ive spent some time thinking about improving production like at that pipe plant I visited just as a mental exercise and it would have to come from fewer shutdowns. Since the seam is welded, the line cant move faster than the welder welds. I wonder how many industries are like that, the line can only move as fast as the slowest process on the line? Speed up the slow process and youve got a million dollar idea!

Its seems like you would have so many skills spread out with all the getting this to work with that, that if you could ever concentrate them all on a key area out of the hundreds you could perhaps get better results and the big bonuses you deserve.

Two welders? three? lol Double up the slow part of a line?

Fascinating line of work; it takes a 40 hour crash course to program PLCs but you never really get to master all the the things it could do and all the machines it might operate your whole career!

 

[Rube]

Some examples:

1: On a palletizer in a water-bottling plant we shaved 1/10 of a second off of 2 timers in the program. End result--3.3 more pallets of product per day.

2: Same plant, we had 6-packs that occasionally fell over in the transitions from one conveyor to another. We turned them 90 gegrees, changed speed instructions from the PLC to VFDs and retimed all the conveyors between wrapper and packer. End result--2 more pallets of product per day

3: In a distribution center for a cell phone company, we slowed a decline belt down 1 foot per minute. The conveyor that the decline emptied on to was an accumulating conveyor with zones. If 2 boxes were in a zone, stops would pop up to separate the 2 boxes. This frequently led to the backup photoeye getting blocked and the decline stopping. Slowing the decline allowed the boxes to pull a gap as they went onto the accumulating conveyor allowing the decline to keep moving boxes. End result--400 more boxes per hour.

4: In a wax injection press, instead of running one mold over and over all day because the machine parameters were loaded by hand into the HMI, we automated the process and RFID labels on each mold cause the HMI/PLC to retrieve the mold setting from a SQL database. Now, while one mold is being disassembled to get the part out, a second, third, fourth, etc mold can be sent to the machine.


You've already demonstrated that you have tenacity and stick-with-it--look at all your posts and threads here. Maybe instead of trying to know it all before you hire on somewhere, you can locate a position that will pay you to use the diagnostic and repair talents you already have and allow you to learn PLCs on the job. Looking at running programs is a great way to learn. Unless you have any weird habits whoever hires you will likey be lucky to have you based on what I've read from you on this forum.

 

[carwashblues]

Only weird at home!

Strictly business on a job, lol. Thanks for the kind words Mark.

Great work on the injection mold machine.I knew about rfid tags for inventory control but this is a very cool application too. Are there a lot of companies out there that are still lagging the times? I keep hearing on the news about American companies pushing for productivity, and automation technology being nothing new, I would think that everything would run on a PLC by now.

You wouldnt be a contractor specializing in the solutions you described by chance? I notice in your signature a company name. That would be a great line of work, seeking out old companies in sleepy towns, who have been living with the same issues for years. Maybe theyve had the same electrical system for 30 years!

Every so often another 6 pack falls off just like theyve been doing for years. I could never be an operator, I would see endless lines of bottled water when I closed my eyes at night. Maybe even the 6 pack falling over! You probably took away someones only visual stimulus at work, the messed up 6 packs were the only excitement!

So a company where you can only shave a split second would be pretty efficient already, maybe a guy like you has been thru the line before? Slim pickens, there. But you might hit a goldmine of inefficiency at another plant?

That would beat watching the same line for 20 years.

BTW you wouldnt happen to use the fancy stand alone gear like the cameras and data aquistion equipment? Seems like it might catch things that might not be immediately apparent, A few more pallets a day every day from a split second improvement here and there has got to be hiding in a big plant somewhere.

Thats improving existing procceses, My first impression of that pipe plant I interviewed at was 2 shutdowns in 20 minutes cant be good. Couldnt a guy like yourself waltz in there, see that you cant really do a "speed things up" improvement because the welder determines speed for the whole line but go another route?

Couldnt you help them not by speeding things up, but by reducing shutdowns? That would seem to be the pay dirt in that plant.

They werent running full capacity anyway working 10 hour shifts but still if the oil induustry picks up they could be flooded with orders.

 

[Rube]

Great work on the injection mold machine.I knew about rfid tags for inventory control but this is a very cool application too. Are there a lot of companies out there that are still lagging the times? I keep hearing on the news about American companies pushing for productivity, and automation technology being nothing new, I would think that everything would run on a PLC by now.

The wax inection press was simply the press with no controls scenario when I got to it. I listened to what the company engineer wanted and made a few recommendations then designed the controls, built the system and programmed it. The clamp on the mold and the wx injection both run off of PIDs and the parameter retrieval from the company's SQL database was added to make things more efficient.

You wouldnt be a contractor specializing in the solutions you described by chance? I notice in your signature a company name.

I'm a farm boy with a laptop and a few ideas with a lot of experience--that's about it. When something breaks on the farm, you get it running again no matter what. Then when you have time you correct the problem permanently.

I have been lucky in that wherever I've worked, I've been allowed to think outside the box by management. People aren't always gonna say no--especially if you sell it the right way. That means when you go to sell your idea, you'd better be right. Experience and the confidence that you're right go a long way. Plus I also have the mentality that "a man built it--a man can fix it".

I've been told for years now that I should go out on my own. So earlier this year I did just that. It's been slow starting but I have confidence that Angus will soon provide both me and my customers a deal fair to both parties and a healthy enough egg for me to eventually retire on.

 

[diat150]

carwashblues... where are you in louisiana? I may be able to give you some places to check out.

also, I will say this, the money doesnt seem to be overseas anymore. I signed up at rigzone just to see what opportunities are available in oi and gas overseas and I havent been able to find the big money.

here is one I just saw in my inbox for a instrument supervisor in dubai

Basic Monthly Salary (Approx.):
Approx. USD 2500 to USD 3500 per month (depending on experience. This salary is paid every month - during On & Off )

Monthly Offshore Allowance (Only while offshore): Approx. USD 1200 a month


60k a year at best to go work in dubai 28-28? not a chance.