Transitioning from installation to Maintenance in a food factory

[jc71292]

Hello everyone,

I'm thinking of transitioning to a maintenance role in a food factory in the near future and I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on any courses I could do to help me with doing the job?

I have a PLC course booked at learn technique as that is something that interested in any way, but I'm just wondering if anyone knew anything else that may help me out when it comes to doing the job?

I know it will mostly come down to experience like everything else.

Any input will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[KennyKen]

Touch up on Automation or Instrumentation.

 

[David Prosser]

I worked maintenance in the food industry for quite a long time, do you have a job lined up or are you just thinking of moving. If you have one lined up find out what kit they have and try to get information online for it. As you have the PLC side covered then diffrent types of starters and panel drawings are a must to get your head around, even knowing to swap the L1 and L2 to reverses a DOL motor can put you ahead of a few of the "electricians" who I've intereviewed.

 

[jc71292]

I worked maintenance in the food industry for quite a long time, do you have a job lined up or are you just thinking of moving. If you have one lined up find out what kit they have and try to get information online for it. As you have the PLC side covered then diffrent types of starters and panel drawings are a must to get your head around, even knowing to swap the L1 and L2 to reverses a DOL motor can put you ahead of a few of the "electricians" who I've intereviewed.

Touch up on Automation or Instrumentation.

Thanks guys, I will definitely try and touch on those areas.

David, I know what you mean about the motor as I have had something similar in the past. I changed a damaged bearing and when they put it back on the line they said I broke the motor as it was spinning anticlockwise.

There is a lot of work for maintenance work around me and the pay is decent £38k+ so I have been thinking to doing that instead, not just for the money but for a change.

I personally think it will be interesting.

 

[dodger421]

Don’t expect much from the Learn Technique course, especially if you’re only doing the one week course. It’s very much a basic programming (in ladder only) course, and I can only really speak for the instructor I had last year, but it was very much a “here’s a problem, now figure out how to do it” with little instruction.

Needless to say there was much frustration and moaning about the lack of actual teaching during the breaks. Off the top of my head there were 10 of us doing the two week course and one guy doing a single week. As it is run as a two week course he effectively missed the week where it all sort of came together for the final project and didn’t really see the point of only doing the single week.

If you’ve got any sort of programming background you will find it slightly easier, but still expect to be frustrated watching the lights not really working the way you expected, or not understanding why the thing you’ve done does work because the function of the tool you’ve used hasn’t been explained properly.

All that being said it is still an introduction to PLC programming, and should put you in a better place than those who’ve never really worked with them. Just don’t expect to be a guru at the end of the course whether you do one week or two.

 

[jc71292]

Don’t expect much from the Learn Technique course, especially if you’re only doing the one week course. It’s very much a basic programming (in ladder only) course, and I can only really speak for the instructor I had last year, but it was very much a “here’s a problem, now figure out how to do it” with little instruction.

Needless to say there was much frustration and moaning about the lack of actual teaching during the breaks. Off the top of my head there were 10 of us doing the two week course and one guy doing a single week. As it is run as a two week course he effectively missed the week where it all sort of came together for the final project and didn’t really see the point of only doing the single week.

If you’ve got any sort of programming background you will find it slightly easier, but still expect to be frustrated watching the lights not really working the way you expected, or not understanding why the thing you’ve done does work because the function of the tool you’ve used hasn’t been explained properly.

All that being said it is still an introduction to PLC programming, and should put you in a better place than those who’ve never really worked with them. Just don’t expect to be a guru at the end of the course whether you do one week or two.

Thanks for the input mate.

It will be the 2 weeks course.

I'm not expecting to master it in that time, but I was at least hoping on being taught enough to fault find and maybe some basic programming.

Do you think it helped you overall?

 

[dodger421]

Thanks for the input mate.

It will be the 2 weeks course.

I'm not expecting to master it in that time, but I was at least hoping on being taught enough to fault find and maybe some basic programming.

Do you think it helped you overall?

It definitely hasn’t hurt, it looks good and sounds good on a CV in an interview. I wouldn’t say it’s helped with fault finding though, they don’t go into that really unless you’re able to plug a laptop into the PLC and download/monitor the program in real time. Where I’m working we’re only allowed to use the HMI/SCADA displays (which aren’t covered at all by the course) and the physical IO’s on the PLC for fault finding.

Checking the physical IO’s only really helps if you know what should be happening at which time, for which you need either the program or the FDS which we don’t usually have. The HMI/SCADA displays vary in their usefulness from really good (I0.0 Safety Edge Strip On/Off) to utterly pointless (I0.0 On/Off but no idea what I0.0 is so where do you go?)

You will definitely learn basic programming and be able to make minor modifications though, and the basic project they work towards in the final week should help you at least understand the more complex programs if you’re ever allowed to access them where you end up working.

 

[rapparee]

Checking the physical IO’s only really helps if you know what should be happening at which time,

Sounds like my life.

Hit the foot pedal. So that's X2

Open and close the guard switch. So that's X0

You get the jist.

I would say to the OP, that he wouldn't be expected to programme PLCs it would be likely that they already have a guy for that. He needs to make himself aware of different kinds of sensors.

It would also do no harm to brush up on the appropriate standards for food production, pneumatics being stainless steel etc

 

[Chris1234]

Did you go any further with this?

 

[static zap]

. He needs to make himself aware of different kinds of sensors.

Calibration of "unwanted metallics" warnings.
..or whatever the tech is called..
(no on wants a packet of metal filings , or bits that fell off)