How to access the industrial sector??

[Smudge]

just seen this post...

i was lucky, and kind of fell into maintenance. I was traded as a house basher originally. I had no prior experience in industrial. It depends how you can adapt to different situations, and whether you have the balls to say no to some of the things you get asked to do. Luckily, i'm a bit of a t#t and enjoy arguing with production. I've now been here 5 years, promoted to head of electrical dept, and love (nearly) every minute. Now the kicker...i had to hit the ground running, learn how to fault find and trouble shoot in plc's, and control systems might have well of been explained in Russian (ps, i dont speak Russian).

Production operators ability is measured purely on one thing...their ability to produce things fast! So if a breakdown occurs, you are the one that has to tell them when they can run the machine again when its fixed. Not as easy as it sounds when they are moaning at you worse than teenage children.

Although i've kind of moved onto more of a project based role, i still help out when need be. I can't see me ever going back into the domestic scene, as IMO, there is so much more to this side of life. You might not get the cups of tea off old Mrs Smith, or the customers gratitude at the end of a job, but i find the stress and pressure a lot more of a buzz. Again, only my opinion.

 

[vaughant]

Paul sorry if things come across negatively,it's always the same when you've been at a job a long time.

as for advice,learn schematic electrical diagrams,learn and learn them,they are the lifeblood of a machine and a good one will make your job a total doddle,a bad or non existent one will make it a nightmare.

i went for years very much like the production lads mentioned above, as a big part of the job was production and I'm sorry to say I did partake in a lot of those bodging activities,shorting out worn auxiliary contacts,holding in reset buttons,covering sensors etc just to keep things moving and I'm also sorry to say that this was actively encouraged,and earned me a lot of money from doing so.

fast forward a few years later when we were put back into centralised maintenance and production was no longer as big a part of my remit and I suddenly realised that I'd not learnt much over the years,as I'd been good at "fixing the machine" but never really finding out why.

sink or swim scenario,luckily I quickly learnt how to swim,as to be fair I had never realised how good the training was plus of course I had picked up a few things along the way.

one of the sparks clocked that I wasn't too good at reading the drawings and spent literally 10 minutes explaining the various features of an electrical diagram to me like how to find where an item was fed from within the drawing,what the little codes below each item meant etc etc.
was the most useful 10 mins of my electrical career to date!!!

id always been involved with plc's but moving to the papermill really put it to the fore as we were using them daily and this then really polished my skills up on it,to the point where I was confident I could find pretty much anything that was thrown at me, but again it all boils down to interpretation of a diagram.

the hard thing a lot of domestic boys find when trying to convert over is that they may not have much knowledge of what drives,plc's,inverters etc actually do when the truth is that you may not always need to know the ins and outs of a particular bit if kit more so that "we have the correct voltage/start conditions going in but nothing coming out,hence the problem is within the unit".
its about being quick to diagnose an issue,so management can make a descision as to what to do.
often in a large environment if a bit of thought went into the initial design of the place then you get a back up system also,so alone on nights chances are you start the standby pump other than replacing it by yourself having a nightmare cos cupboards with tools are locked away etc only accessible by dayshift managers etc.

its all about lateral thinking,proving out what your doing and standing by your results.
the amount of boys I've seen rushing to change a big motor cos its tripped out three or four times when they've not even carried out basic checks is astounding to me,not checking basics like balance,contactor continuity/resistance,even going down to the motor,having a sniff,pulling the cover off and removing tails to double check the motor itself is ok,scary.
the apprentice I was working with before I left the mill got caught on an easy to miss fault.
a hydraulic lift had gone out to have the rams refurbed and came back on our shift to be refitted.
bear in mind it had sat outside for 3 months in the rain,the motor did look a bit rough.
he reconnected it,lovely job too but it kept going slow and tripping on up.
we both agreed it seemed like it was "single phasing".
belled it out from the panel,motor showing open circuit between red/yellow.isolated,
took cover off,removed tails,tested it again same issue,so we were thinking the motor was u/s.
annoyed he started getting tools out to remove the so called u/s motor.
i took a quick look inside and could see straight away the issue,the small spade connector from the internal windings had snapped off so the wire wasn't making contact with the pole from the incoming supply,he'd obviously tightened it up a bit too much when putting the wires on and that was the fault.
imagine the embarrassment and hassle of swapping that out just for someone in the winding company to say "oh dear,nice easy job for me today!!!".

I'm loving doing it and as a career I'd choose it over hacking walls and connecting up sockets every time.

 

[Nipex83]

Maintenance work is not for everybody I would rather be on the installation side of things were your kept busy with the job in hand.. The last job I done was for primark in Ireland installing the automation system for garment hanging systems. If I could I would do that work all the time because its interesting work installing single and 3 phase Motors plc panels, paddle and cross switches and conveyor belts , I would never go back to wiring boring houses after getting the experience in that sort of work.. My boss even gave me a go trying to programme the plc panel on his apple laptop but truth be known I need a lot more experience to become a programmer..

Can u see yourself staying in the maintenance side of things?

 

[swirl]

i was brought up in a control and automation enviroment, installing conveyor systems in car plants, control panel manufacture and installations all round the country, great job, i'm now working for a local car plant reactive maintainence on 4 x 12hr nights, 1x 8hr afternoon a week best job i've ever had, overtime sat/sun on days installing the best of both worlds, go for it and see where you get but you are gonna have to hit the floor running and learn quick your only as good as your last fix in the maintainence game

 

[swirl]

hey look at that my first post, only been looking round the site since dec 2011

 

[danielsemaj]

these lot are making it sound harder than it is. get in touch with an agency and i garentee in a few days you will be bending a bit of tube on site.

 

[Knobhead]

these lot are making it sound harder than it is. get in touch with an agency and i garentee in a few days you will be bending a bit of tube on site.

With someone bending the tube around you’re neck.

There’s more to industrial than installation.

 

[joel89]

nvq 3 in engineering maintenance (electrical)

 

[joel89]

So you take a job as a production monkey and get paid as such? It's an old con trick to get breakdown cover on the cheap. I've walked out on two companies that tried that.

our company does it with setting on apprentice fitters then pushing them onto production, once nvq 3 over

 

[joel89]

With someone bending the tube around you’re neck.

There’s more to industrial than installation.

:iagree: bending conduit, tray and trunking is easy 3 phase.. power installs a domestic man could do. its when you get into industrial control, automation, PLC.

 

[snowhead]

:iagree: bending conduit, tray and trunking is easy 3 phase.. power installs a domestic man could do. its when you get into industrial control, automation, PLC.

Even the basics of finding where the relvant D.B is can catch a lot of people out.
Yes it's in one of the 36 way 3ph boards somwewhere on a site, or is it part of the Essential distribution or even the U.P.S distribution.
It may be marked correcftly in the D.B, on the other hand maybe not.