Reflecting on the good and bad jobs.

[Ronnie Sullivan]

I said earlier I'm now semi-retired and I will take on only 'the good jobs.

After 50 years of grafting, I now have more time to remember the great times (and the bad)

One came to mind where I built the panel and employed electrical contractors to wire all the sensors, motors and field devices for a big conveyor system.

Despite me giving them all the drawings and written and verbal instructions, I was supposed to just turn up when it was done and commission it.

Meanwhile, they had decided to connect them in any order they liked and the management had decided to alter the sequence and also add extra turntables.

No cables were marked and all were in the wrong terminations.
At this point, they gave me their own revised drawings to work from which even now were not right.
Do you remember having to scribble all over final drawings to put them right?

I found a photograph on my phone recently and laughed (ironically) at the memory.

 

[JesperMP]

It is a funny story, but ..

One came to mind where I built the panel and employed electrical contractors to wire all the sensors, motors and field devices for a big conveyor system.

If you did the hiring of the contractors, I would assume that you have the responsibility of the quality of their work. If you just leave them without supervision, that is a gamble.
Even it was a known and trusted contractor, I would assume a couple of onsite visits during the project would be needed.
I assume that you didn't work with them before. That would mean even more checking up was needed.
We always have at least one startup visit to brief contractors, and then several follow-up visits during installation.

edit: The other issue is with the customer changing the project mid-installation. I would have demanded a renegotiation of the contract.

 

[parky]

Yes it's good to reflect on the jobs you did both good & bad.
I remember one in particular, a large installation, The company I worked for designed & built the control panel, the MCC panels were built by KLockner, & the installation done by a preferred electrical company of the customers choosing, in other words the customer had their own development engineering or projects division, used preferred contractors for the work.
When I got to site noticed that not one of the valves (there were hundreds) showed any feedback, each valve had two proximities for open & closed indication, these were wired via a 4 core cable to a local JB & connected to the two proximities, turned out that every one was connected wrong, according to the install diagrams Core 1, + core 2 - core 3 closed Core 4 Open, it wasn't that they had connected every one the same but wrong it varied, however, not one of those were correct, what are the chances of that.
To top it all, on my first day I was called into a meeting with the other contractors, they went through the list of outstanding items & the time scales, it was obvious that it was running late, after all the other trades had finishe they looked at me & said, so we have only one week to commission this on the trials, yep you guessed it, muggins here originally had 5 weeks & we thought that was tight, due to the other trades extra time I was asked if it could be done in one week, I said I would try but bear in mind the problems already seen & the original expected time, I would try, Managed to get it into production although a little flaky, as expected, I had to re-wire all those JB's on top of doing the I/O checks etc. As per usual, I was always kept on day work for a month or two after sign off just in case, during that time there started to be failures of some of the drives, this turned out to be another failure of the electrical installer, every motor had a local isolator, who ever installed them was a bit over zelious with their knife every one of the silflex inner cores had been cut through so any slight bit of moisture had caused tracking & tripped the drives, probably would not be a problem even though the isolators were IP65, but due to high pressure hoses, hot & cold changes in the environment meant moisture would either ingress or condense in the isolators, on top of that a number of loose glands.

 

[JesperMP]

Reflecting on some of my projects.

On the contractor side, on a project there was an electrician (hired by the customer) doing all the electrical connections in the field. Turns out that he was an alcoholic, and his hands were shaking so hard that he couldn't tighten the screws enough. Every single sensor, motor, terminal box, and terminals on cables were loose. Something that was only found out when commissioning started. We had to halt the commissioning and get new electricians to come in and redo every connection.

On the customer side, we have some times that it is the customer that writes the contract text and we both sign it. One customer snuck in the words "optimized" and "integrated" in the contract text. Which meant that he could interpret at will what was to be part of the project and how it was supposed to work. And he did so during the entire project. This was an upgrade of an existing plant and also the was a mix of old, new supplied by us and new supplied by the customer. He would constantly add to or change the project, all the way till it was done commissioning and even after.

 

[parky]

It has just reminded of a prelim meeting on the above I posted, we were an approved systems builder for this company, in that prelim meeting we were told that all contracts would contain a clause related to late delivery, i.e. a charge if project not completed on time, this could run into tens of thousands per day, after the meeting, my boss & myself had a private meeting with projects, my boss informed them that we would also add penalty clause, they never added that to our contracts, they knew that they were always late & as far as I'm aware we had never been the cause of a late completion.

 

[I_Automation]

To me all jobs where I successfully get something running, especially if it's a service call where their guy has failed, is a good job when I watch my work run.


A bad job is one where I have to throw the towel in because it's over my head or out of my "field of expertise" (Quotes on that because I really don't have one)


As far as customer changes all of my quotes include a section on separate quoting and billing of "Engineering Changes" made after the project is started. And I have dealt with some major engineering changes - even after the equipment was approved and running. A contractor moving a wire to another terminal requires CAD schematic, PLC and probably HMI changes. Maybe even wire number changes if it is wired according to the input or output.

 

[JeffKiper]

I had what I would classify as a very basic wireless I/O job. The installation was for a Japanese auto maker. I arrived and examined the installation. Talked to the electricians showed them how each station was supposed to go and left. 1 week later they called and said it was ready. I arrived checked a few systems and turned the power on. Everything worked as it should. About 60 work stations with 6 I/O points per station. I changed the text sizes on the screen for the plant. The had moved the display to a 72" TV that was centrally located. It was a nice job. The customer and the OEM went on and on about how well it went.

I thought it was just another job. Ive done several more of them. I found out why they had so many problems the project managers changed during the job and wanted to change the operating parameters for the project. "We are ABC manufacturing company if you want to work for us you will make the changes". I explained that "You came to me for this project. I didnt come to you. I dont need you as a customer. Now that we have that out of the way. How would you like to proceed?" They always had a shocked and somewhat defeated look on thier faces agter that meeting.