Machinist wanting to switch careers any advice?

[rsdoran]

Being Bubba

I do not think it matters what your background is. What is important is having the ability to LEARN and striving to do so.

The information provided with this site can help.

These sites may help some:
http://www.patchn.com Has info on many things electrical, electronic, plc, mechanical etc.

http://www.thelearningpit.com This is an AB oriented software program that simulates working with AB plc's.

I have numerous online sites that can help you get up to speed, but it is up to you to want too.

 

[Jiri Toman]

No manufacturing

Manufacturing in the USA is on a steady downward path and undoubtadly it is a trend that will persist for years to come. One only needs to look at what percentage of GDP manufacturing used to represent few years ago and what it is today. PLC programming is obviously not a growth skill, I would not advise anyone to pursue it as a career in today's environment.
One area of economy which has grown in inverse proportion to manufacturing is finance, and also the medical field is doing very well.
So if one should insist on staying with technology (which I don't recommend either) I would say that being in IT and supporting computer infrastructure for a financial institution or a hospital might be a safer bet.

 

[DJM]

Manufacturing in the USA is on a steady downward path

I agree and this is essentially what I stated in my first post concerning eggs and baskets. If you want to go to China, you might do well. U.S. manufacturing is on the decline and I don't see it rebounding for some time, if ever.

 

[Hakutsuru]

Of course, manufacturing is not the only thing us PLC guys can do. Heck, in 10 years I've only been in a manufacturing facility once, and all I did was shovel some BS while our electricians and thier operators found the real problem. Management spent all thier time looking over my shoulder at my laptop and left the real workers alone. I was useful, it was brilliant.

We can work in pharmecueticals, oil and gas, cement, research, HVAC, water and wastewater, power generation, and I'm sure there are others. Those are industries I dont see being outsourced. Some of them, like water and power, I don't think can be outsourced. Once you have experience, even if its in manufacturing, you'll be able to make the jump if needed.


-jeff ($.02)

 

[CroCop]

Of course, manufacturing is not the only thing us PLC guys can do. Heck, in 10 years I've only been in a manufacturing facility once, and all I did was shovel some BS while our electricians and thier operators found the real problem. Management spent all thier time looking over my shoulder at my laptop and left the real workers alone. I was useful, it was brilliant.

We can work in pharmecueticals, oil and gas, cement, research, HVAC, water and wastewater, power generation, and I'm sure there are others. Those are industries I dont see being outsourced. Some of them, like water and power, I don't think can be outsourced. Once you have experience, even if its in manufacturing, you'll be able to make the jump if needed.


-jeff ($.02)

Nail meets head.
I couldn't have posted anything better.

 

[Steve Bailey]

It's true that manufacturing's share of the US GDP is shrinking. That's at least partially because of what we do. Those of us who frequent this forum are involved in automation and the goal of automation is to increase productivity. That means making more stuff while using fewer resources. Resources used in making stuff include raw materials, energy, and hours of labor.

When economies moved from being primarily agricultural to primarily industrial that didn't mean there was less agriculture going on; it just meant that it required fewer people to get it done.

It is an analogous situation in the machine shop today. Modern CNC machine tools can turn out more consistent parts at a faster rate than can be achieved by a skilled machinist operating a manual machine, so the operator of a machine tool is reduced to the status of a button pusher (or a screen toucher). The skill involved has moved to the person who creates the part programs. In some cases that "person" is a computer program that interprets the drawing of the part and creates the part programs.

So, to the original poster, if you're interested in learning PLCs, go for it! It may turn out that in the future you won't be able to find a full-time job as a machinist, nor a full-time job as a PLC programmer. But if you're the person who can reprogram the PLC when necessary and also fabricate a replacement for the broken frammus, you just might be the person who is able to earn a living wage in manufacturing.

 

[Jason_Adams]

Ok first disclosure, I cut my teath in the air force doing all of it, as a fire control tech. However, most of the training was in electronics. Pnumatics, hydraulics and mechanical was mostly ojt. My first job out of the service was as a unimate robot tech, I hope that doesn't give away my age too badly, ha.

Anyhow, I would think that the simple boolean stuff would not have anything to it that would reccomend it to the mechanical or electronic trades specificly, excepting that you might want your outputs and inputs to actually fire the solenoid or read the prox which requires electrical knowlege in order to wire it correctly.

However, the motor control stuff and anything to do with analog would more likely find a person familiar with the concepts in the electronics fields. We can call this type of application "controls" as opposed to programming.

Now haveing said that, I will seemingly reverse my previous statement and say that when you are controlling an actual physical process, knowlege of electronics is just knowlege of the devices which control and monitor, you can't get too far with that unless you understand the actual process you are controlling and monitoring.

 

[TimWilborne]

Manufacturing in the USA is on a steady downward path and undoubtadly it is a trend that will persist for years to come. One only needs to look at what percentage of GDP manufacturing used to represent few years ago and what it is today. PLC programming is obviously not a growth skill, I would not advise anyone to pursue it as a career in today's environment.
One area of economy which has grown in inverse proportion to manufacturing is finance, and also the medical field is doing very well.
So if one should insist on staying with technology (which I don't recommend either) I would say that being in IT and supporting computer infrastructure for a financial institution or a hospital might be a safer bet.

I wasn't even going to reply this morning because it seemed so far out in left field but just thought with someone being this miss informed I had to at least try to help out. Is manufacturing on the decline or is it changing and you just can't seem to keep up? I know all about resistance to change since I grew up in a textile city. But since I actually do work in the medical industry, I can't help but ask, do you not realize that equipment that is used to manufacturer goods for the medical industry uses PLCs?

And on top of that, again since I just happen to wander around the medical industry, do you realize the severe shortage of machinist in the medical industry. Perhaps you didn't realize it, but all those little metal things they put in your body are actually machined parts!

Since I have also dabbled in the steel industry in the past, I always get a good kick out of the people who say that the US steel industry is dead or dying. Yes, the 100 year old steel industry of the US is dead, but did you know that MODERN steel mills of the US have enjoyed the largest profits ever lately? Especially during the steel tariffs that were meant to protect the 100 year old steel industries such as Bethlehem? That had to be the biggest joke we had ever heard but we sure did enjoy the profits and drank some darn good liquor.

 

[Ron Beaufort]

question from S7Guy:

I don't mean to criticize you guys, but why do you think electrical knowledge is important?

that's an honest question - and no offense was taken ... here's my own personal answer ...

What would it take to get my foot in the door so to say with an entry level PLC job?

this was our thread starter's original question ... I'm not sure that I know exactly what HE/SHE means by "entry level PLC job" but to ME that usually means something along the lines of installation and/or maintenance of systems controlled by PLCs ...

specifically, personally I don't usually think of "programming" as being an "entry level" position ... of course it certainly COULD be - but I don't usually consider it to be that way ...

anyway ... for the types of "entry level" jobs that turn up based on MY definition, electrical skills are DEFINITELY an important part of the picture ... that's why I said this type of knowledge is important ...

sorry if I didn't make myself clear earlier ... and yes, I have taught quite a few non-electrical people about PLCs - but they were usually involved in plant statistics and stuff like that ... again - NOT what I would consider an "entry level" job ...

 

[leitmotif]

Seems to me that a good machinist - I mean MACHINIST not machine operator who really knows the tooling and the math should be quite valuable as a CNC programmer. Now he has the knowledge of the machine, the process, tooling, and the program. That seems to be the next logical step for a good machinist.

As far as electrical knowledge from what I have seen the most common problem with either PLC or VFDs is the sensors. The PLC VFD etc run just fine (PROVIDED they stay cool and fairly clean - at work ours are filthy covered in plastic dust and right next to a hot extruder around 250 - wonder why we replace drives fairly often??). So unless you are in the business of making the whole system run PLC sensors etc etc you don't need much electrical knowledge. Knowledge of the overall process is more important and the ability to set up the steps in the PLC in an organized step by step sequence is important.

Dan Bentler

 

[controlled]

I think a good PLC programmer needs knowledge in all aspects of the equipment they are working on. A programmer with out any electrical knowledge could find himslef in a lot of trouble. Eg. He writes a perfectly organized, well written program for a new machine. Downloads program and puts it into run mode. Nothing happens. Is everything wired correctly, are the output modules being fed by power, are there any blown fuses. In most cases, as the programmer, its his job to get the machine running. Without and electical knowledge, how can he do that?