OT: So Much For a Quiet Sunday

[bwhite]

0545 this morning.
Water Plant Operator: something is wrong with program.
Me: what is wrong?
Op: Cl is too high. Pump at 95% its coming back in now but logic is bad?
Me: Well, was it working fine last week?
Op: Yep
Me: Something physical happened.
Op: I should probably calibrate the Cl analyzer.
Me: I think that would be a good start (said in my most calm voice)

This afternoon, power outage in NE sector. Thank God for cellular comms and VTScada,,,m oh, and my iPad.

Thanks for listening to my b!tching.

 

[geniusintraining]

Thanks for listening to my b!tching.

Its venting and we all need to do it every once in awhile

 

[ASF]

One of my favourites from years ago:

OP: The level transmitter on this tank is faulty!
Me: Why is that?
OP: Because it's showing 0%!
Me: *brings up 7 day trend of tank level, showing a beautifully linear slope all the way from 90% to 0%*
OP: ...
Me: did "somebody" forget to order the chemical this week by any chance?

 

[m_turk]

Freshly installed scada..

OP: You have an error..
Me: Oh, sorry.. What bug did you find?
OP: The Pump in XX is red.
Me: But that was ok a week ago...
OP: Yes it was, it only came today.
Me: So, did anybody check the pump?
OP: No...

 

[MrAnonEMoose]

Angrily, "The algorithm has... morphed!"


Sure it did...

 

[Saturn_Europa1]

I work at a wastewater plant in maintenance. Everyone loves to blame the program/SCADA. Because you dont have to do anything. Its the programs fault, you can sit back down.

I believe about 50% of what I hear over the phone and 0% if it doesnt make sense. I've given up trying to walk people through problems on the phone. I just go in and fix it.

I've been in this field for 9 years. If it worked for a few weeks/months its almost guaranteed that if something goes wrong it not the code in the PLC. We run AB products and for the most part that stuff is rock solid. Its a field component gone bad. Get out of the control room and check on it!


My favorite thing is that when there is a problem with a 20 year old control panel, guys will go in there and start rewiring it. It worked for 20 years!! Dont start moving wires.

 

[RET]

Those darn programs...always changing themselves at the worst time.

 

[JohnCalderwood]

Way back in the 90s, I was working on my Masters project, dealing with PLCs and Automation with Maintenance (MSc in Maintenance Systems Engineering and Management).

I was trying at that stage to improve the information that operators and shift men saw before phoning us poor Control Engineers at the dead of night...

We also ran familiarisation training courses on PLC5 for all the technicians.

The figures that we came out with then for "PLC Faults" were that 80-85% were caused by external influences, such as Instrumentation, Proximity Switches, Operator Error. Only 15-20% were true PLC software faults, where a sequence had got confused, so we obviously had not built in enough diagnostics to recover from faults or operators trying to get the system to work the way they wanted it.....

Even now, in the company I work for, we get the Production Log downtime report saying "PLC Error" (which is one of the operators multiple choice options), when it has nothing to do with the PLC, but they get a shift tech over to have a look and find the PLC Fault.

 

[Highland Controls]

I had a LabVIEW program in the field working fine for 8 months. Customer calls and asks for the latest source code. They have been down a couple of days and were convinced something in the program was wrong, so they tried to change it. Now it is worse than before and can't get back to where they were. They eventually found a bad valve.....

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Jenkins Law: The technology least understood will always be blamed for any problem.

 

[Steve Bailey]

Gee Tom, I always thought that was Bailey's law.

 

[Aabeck]

Those darn programs...always changing themselves at the worst time.

Along with the wires that walked from under a certain relay screw terminal to under some other screw in the panel.

 

[Soggy Canuck]

My personal favorite. ..... 2:00am phone call "the machine is down, bring your laptop, there's something screwed up in the program"

Arrive onsite, found the 50conductor cabtire from the main pushbutton station torn out of the MCC.

Comment from from the shift supervisor "can you make it work without it?" Includes SIL2 stop cct.

 

[gclshortt]

I've always answered this way when told the program has changed...

GREAT, We can be millionaires. Think of the money that we can make by suing the manufacturer. They cannot sell us a machine that is always changing a program!

Now lets prove it and get our money!

 

[gas]

I tell them to go find the night fairy that did it and make him put those ones and zeros back where they were.