Operators that don't know their systems

[Lancie1]

Disabling your primary shutdown? Not allowed, and could result in jail time. Simply to not be bothered by an alarm.

It seems a huge risk to avoid hearing an alarm. Could it be sabotage or terrorism? Someone paid to make the platform blow up?

I watched the BP drama unfold on TV and it seemed that there was an extraordinary amount of "bad luck" happening to that BP platform, but for things that easily could have been fixed to fail at the wrong time. Whatever the cause, BP has been unfairly accused, berated, fined, and punished as if they deliberately set out to pollute the ocean. What a crock of bull. I wonder who pocketed all that BP fine money? It certainly did nothing for the national debt.

 

[tomalbright]

You find, in every field or career, ignorance is bliss. The idea that "nothing ever happens, so it won't happen" is very persistent.

Regarding BP - they took some serious shortcuts. "nothing ever happens, so it won't happen" as it has in so many wells being done over the years, ignorance is the easy part.

 

[jad51]

I have put in a push button with a counter on it just to see how many times people would randomly push a button they had no knowledge on what it did.

I have driven two and a half hours to remove a peanut.

I have also driven two hours to replace a fuse (broken track on a circuit board on my service report to protect the employee )

I have also been called out to reset and emergency stop push button after waiting ten minutes on the phone for the employee to check them.

I have also sent a sales man off to find a round hole, he came back two hours latter

These are a few funny ones, the scary ones are the ones that keep you on your toes.

 

[OkiePC]

Peanut?

 

[sethen320]

This one has nothing to do with the PLC, although there was one on the machine.

In my experience, the problems seldom have anything to do with the PLC.

I have actually had to say "Really? The PLC program is broken after chuggng along for 10 years now with no problems?"

 

[iant]

just having some fun with a new program. ( now running for two weeks )
two valves open and close alternativly
- simple step program
If either valve takes too long then fault the system
- also simple
Ok now the fun
every now and then it faults the system.
"too slow to open X valve"
- Check the program - OK
- Check the air pressure - OK
modify program to 'Auto reset' if the fault rectifies itself.
- Not a crutial fault - as long as it completes cycle in time.
- test - seems OK

Today
- system won't start
- valves wont move
- Air Pressure is ON
Fault -
Additional manual Air valve roller switch
this is fitted between the two solenoids to isolate air if the unit is swung out of position.
the valve is stuck slightly open
- no air supply to the solenoids
- or not enough air
Finally found our cause
- valve replaced - All now OK

 

[BobB]

Ruddy operators - old saying - 'you can make things idiot proof but not operator proof' - they will push buttons and all sorts of things to make the machine 'break down' so they can sit on there fat a***s to be honest - particularly in the middle of the night when no one is available so they can have a sleep and get paid for it!

 

[Andybr]

i) Called out in the middle of one night because the line at one of our plants "would not start". Drove 3 hours to site and started the line. The inquest roughly went:-
What did you do?
I pressed the start button.
What start button?
The big green button labelled "Start".
Oh, we didn't know you had to do that. (This was not a new installation).

ii) On the same site I got involved in an argument between operators about the best set up for a particular machine. The main point was the best postion for a selector switch on the front of an old panel which had been upgraded to PLC control a few months earlier. Each operator swore that his selection worked best. I was asked to investigate, opened the panel door and found the switch did not actually have any wiring to it at all.

 

[Chris Taylor]

In the early 90's I once had to travel from London to the Kingdom of Bhutan to replace a lamp, "We can’t get the system in to Auto", Then I was stuck there for a week as the King took the single plane owned by the national airline and went shopping with his wives in Bangkok.

Chris

 

[Jeff23spl]

We even got a call from A city operator about a control panel going wrong (Pump panel) When we asked what was going wrong, he said, the panel didn't start when i push start and the red light taged ''overload'' is lit...CAN YOU COME RIGHT NOW AND FIX YOU'RE &*&?%?%$ PANEL, BECAUSE OF YOU'RE *&?%$, THE WATER GOES OVER AND....!!!

Another one was from a typical wire puller electrician: ''When i switch the breaker off, the pump still continue running'' can you take you're tools and fix that! Come down there and figured out that he was trying to shut the breaker off with the door open and the mecanical rod was not turning with the handle...

By the time, i figured out i should always keep a good relashionship with operators even when i see this kind of things...They are the person, owners and peoples buying new stuff reffer to, when selecting supplier and also they are the person that you could ask some hidden special question to know if they did something wrong or not that the owner would know but never tell you about because it could change from warranty to a paying issue...

 

[Addohm]

You're story is a good one.

I am forever told "Hey Adam, can you look at the program on such-and-such piece of equipment?"

or

"We need to put the old program back in."

Funny that if a machine runs for weeks or months without any issues directly related to the program or program changes, why should I look at the program?

Everyone has bosses. My bosses don't like me very much because I -ALWAYS- have to remind them that programs do not change, only physical components of the PLC changes, and that extends out as far as every wire, prox, photoeye, encoder, drive, etc of your system.

I do have to ask though, why isn't the program burned in on EEPROM? If it's final and you know it works...

 

[The Plc Kid]

I have seen the program be the culprit after long periods of running. I had a machine here that had been running 2 years after I got here and it had a issue and turns out it was not coded corretly and when the conditions were right you could not reset the machine without toggling 2 bits.

One of the old sparkies said they had seen it do that before and the EE before me would just reload the program to get it running.I fixed that and have never had to relaod the program since. So it was not correct from the begining but it would give you that assumption since it had been running 2 years 24/7/365.

 

[zitam]

I can count on fingers of one hand operators that have any idea about the machine or line that they are working on. They know basics, but if you want to know something more ... . Can't describe without bad words thank good for PLC code

 

[OkiePC]

I have seen the program be the culprit after long periods of running.

When they blame the program, keep an open mind.

I worked on some code for a line that had been running five or more years with the wrong dispwitch setting on about 16 remote block i/o modules. I added some timers and changes to a counter card. After it had run a few days, I needed to go troubleshoot a sensor (and turned off power). Afterward, none of the I/O would reset. My peers: New guy says that all of a sudden the dipswitches are all wrong after he "re programmed it"...now it won't run at all and we gotta go open up 16 boxes up on the catwalk and change them all?

Once I power cycled it, the dipswitch settings took effect and were wrong. But, they matched the equally incorrect professionally engineered drawings. I guess whoever commissioned it originally got it to work, and then he or someone else went back while it was running and matched them to the print.

No, it wasn't the program, but it was still on me.

Also, I have yet to see a program that I thought was un-improvable.

 

[brstilson]

How much time do you have? Recently went into a customer's facility. Output won't turn on. Maintenance tech writes down three pairs of Input addresses and Output addresses. Says normally, these inputs turn on these outputs. I keep my mouth shut despite the urge to correct him. Anyway, turns out the Input Output pair was wrong, and they had a selector switch in the wrong position.

My favorite time though was when I worked in a food production facility as a tech and they called me to go online with the processor to see why this mixer wasn't starting. After about 5 minutes of navigating the program, I saw that the reason the mixer wasn't starting was because the mix time was set to 0.