Documentation woes

okiebob

Member
Join Date
May 2002
Location
McAlester, OK
Posts
98
I remember a thread concerning a "STANDARD" for documentation and all of the nitty gritty details. Currently I am working on a under-documented project. Under-documented meaning= Done right at one time (I think) and project is worked carried for YEARS with no updates. What are YOUR worst documentation scenerios that you have had. It will be interesting to hear / see other's experience's with this.
 
NOT Having any

I deal with many systems and do not have either software or printed copy of original, I have spent hours upon hours and days upon days reverse engineering to create documentation. Naturally for someone like me the worst ones are the non ladder programmed types, even when programmed in ladder and you have to deal with hundreds (maybe thousands) of rungs of ladder it can make for an intense situation.

It can get worse, when high level programming is involved and/or another language is used. Sometimes the use of another language even when documented can make things awkward.
 
My company is contracted to do a drive retrofit for a customer. We need to make some plc modifications to support the new drives. I just received a copy of the plc program.
It's a PLC5 program. Everything is in one program file and there isn't a line of text in the program anywhere. Luckily there are only about 200 rungs so it shouldn't take forever to document. But it won't be real fun either.
I've been pretty lucky up to this point with documentation. Aside from this case I haven't had any real bad ones. (Knock on wood bonkhead )

Keith
 
Standard

I’m currently working on a project for a line installed 5 years ago. When the equipment came into the plant all hardware was labeled with the device mnemonics and a print #. The line was assigned a different print series…so all the tags are wrong! The PLC program was well written and documented but needed minor changes. So they placed the original program in File #3 and the new program in File #4. Using File #2 to never select File #3 and always select File #4. (Try using the search function without ending up in the wrong file) Then modifications were made and a PanelView was added. Twenty four new inputs none of which are on the prints or the PLC documentation. And I will need to correct all of this before I can begin the modifications that I was assigned to do.

Oh, did I mention that the guy who has been responsible for this equipment since installation is now my boss.

So in short I don’t really care what “STANDARD” you use. But for Pete’s sake use one!!!
 
The two worst systems for me were ones that had plenty of documentation. It was a brand new plant and we had heaps of gear from around the world but everything was built to a plant standard which meant AB plc. Unfortunately when we went online with a problem on the Desal plant ( turns underground water which is 20 times saltier than sea water into fresh for mega thirsty plant ) we found that it was in ISRAELI! Since no one spoke Israeli in this plant in Oz this was prob.

Then we discovered that the Hoesch filters from Germany were also in GERMAN! No one spoke german either.

Made for lots of fun until they OEMs sent versions with english comments over!
 

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