Necessary Skills Automation Engineer

Mohamed El

Member
Join Date
Nov 2022
Location
Algeria
Posts
9
Hello Everyone,

What are the Necessary Skills and Softwares that an industrial automation engineer need to learn well and master ?

Thanks in advance for your answers
 
Frst of all you need to know the basics of many control components i.e. solenoids, valves, sensors, analog units i.e. pressure sensors, possibly analytical instruments the list goes on, as for control again unless the company you work for (or run yourself) tends to stick with certain control systems then the list is endless, as for PLC systems you need to know the basics i.e. how a PLC works, the functions it has, boolean logic, analogue processing, communications. The most commonly used PLC's are Rockwell, Siemens Mitsubishi, Omron, plus many other platforms, although work in a similar way there are many differences, and of course electrical knowledge i.e. drives, motors, wiring.
 
This could turn into a very long thread...

Skills:
- Willing to learn
- Willing to be humble (Know your stuff and be proud of it, but don't be arrogant. Most customers would rather work with someone less skilled and humble than someone who is very skilled and arrogant.)
- Electrical safety
- Electrical design standards for your area of the world (and/or your customer's region)
- Time management
- Electrical / Electronics circuit analysis (how deep you go on this will be governed by your tasks / employer. You will need the basics to troubleshoot failed devices and validate installed equipment.)
- Motor theory (AC, DC, Variable Frequency and DC Drives, servo control)
- P, PI, PID control theory and basics of setting up and adjusting. This topic can be as basic or as complex as your applications require.
- Test equipment usage
- PLC applications and usage, how they differ from standard computers
- PLC languages (all, dependent on platform used)
- Communications (VERY broad subject- will depend on your customers and platform.)

I could go on and on, but I need to get back to my work.

Never limit your learning and always ask questions.
 
1) understand the process you're trying to control; high speed motion and a vat full of chemicals are very different. This is different from industry to industry. It can usually be learned on the job, but you'll have trouble succeeding without it.

Many people think they need an electrical background to get hired in PLC, but there are a surprising number of mechanical/chemical/etc engineers in the industry for precisely this reason.



2) A basic understanding of Ethernet networking. Most IO is controlled over Ethernet based protocols these days (Profinet/EthernetIP/ModbusTCP/Ethercat/etc). There is a lot that can go wrong with a network if you do things MOSTLY like last time, but you don't understand what the effect of the changes is.


3) A willingness to learn and try new things. Be a sponge; learn everything you can. Don't be afraid of jumping outside your comfort zone a little bit, but be aware of the difference between a stretch project and getting set up to fail.



4) There is an art to knowing which manuals need to be read, and which ones you can skip. In theory, you should read most every page of every manual for every device you use. In practice..... your boss probably won't give you 6mo for each project. We all get burned by this from time to time, thinking we're smart enough to figure it out on the fly, because we usually are, except when we aren't.
 
4) There is an art to knowing which manuals need to be read, and which ones you can skip. In theory, you should read most every page of every manual for every device you use. In practice..... your boss probably won't give you 6mo for each project. We all get burned by this from time to time, thinking we're smart enough to figure it out on the fly, because we usually are, except when we aren't.

That is so true!

Analytical skills and critical thinking should go on the list too. The ability to look at someone elses drawings/specification and then work out in your own mind how that needs ot work in practical terms.

Nick
 
I would add

5) Know how to find the material you're looking for. Knowing the nomenclature of the industry and the devices you're working with makes it easy. Download a PDF and CTRL+F to win. People are dumbfounded how I don't bother looking at a table of contents or index to find an answer. I know the keywords I'm looking for, I know the general idea of the answer I need, so searching for those things and scanning the document find the answer quicker 90% of the time for me.



Like others have said, one of the bigger items for me would be knowing how everything works on it's own.

If you know how a contactor/motor starter works, you can wire it up, integrate it, and troubleshoot it, and the same goes for a VFD as well. Some of the simplest callouts I've been to have been because someone just simply didn't understand the device they were working with and didn't know what to look for. Put simply, if you don't know how it works, how will you know how to make it work or how to fix it?
 
The most important skills are what many call "soft" skills. You will pick up the electrical and electronics and software knowledge others have highlighted through training and experience. These skills are useless without these soft skills.

- A willingness to put forth great effort for long periods
- Accepting and enjoying challenges
- Persistence
- Cause and effect logical thinking
- Openness to new concepts and ideas
- Curiosity about everything
- Willingness to look stupid when asking questions
- Willingness to make mistakes and learn from them
- Unflinching optimism that you will eventually make things work
 
Last edited:
I have learned you need to know absolutely everything about every component and process of the machine you are working on.


I basically have to be a mechanical engineer, chemical engineer, plumber, electronics engineer, IT engineer, industrial engineer, process engineer, and every other type of engineer except maybe interstate highway engineer and railroad engineer.


You have to know and understand every aspect of the process you are working on.



I have been called to a line that the product wasn't comping out good and everyone there said their 'thing' was OK. The chemical engineer said his chemical was good, the maintenance supervisor said the pumps were running and the conveyor was moving at the right speed, the line foreman said everything was set right, the QC director said the chemicals and temperatures were all OK. I had to learn every process of that line to be able to determine what the root cause was because since all their stuff was OK it had to be a problem with the PLC.
 
I have asked some stupid questions and as soon as someone started laughing and said that was a stupid question someone else finally said one critical piece of information that revealed the cause of the problem that had been going on for months.
 
In addition to asking a lot of questions, don't be afraid to do your own troubleshooting and verification of what others have witnessed. I cannot count the number of times that I have been told "I already tried that" or have been given bad info. Sometimes you have to test and retest what others tell you in order to find the real cause of a problem. Respectful obstinance will take you far when it comes to solving some problems.
 
In addition to asking a lot of questions, don't be afraid to do your own troubleshooting and verification of what others have witnessed. I cannot count the number of times that I have been told "I already tried that" or have been given bad info. Sometimes you have to test and retest what others tell you in order to find the real cause of a problem. Respectful obstinance will take you far when it comes to solving some problems.


This, times a billion billion!


For at least 5 years, I've had a paperweight on my desk that's an aluminum coupling that attached a DC tach generator to a rolling mill drive gearbox. The generator signal was the speed feedback for the DC drive that powered the gearbox and the speed reference for several other drives up and down the line that had to be synchronized to the line speed. The symptoms all pointed to an erratic signal from the tach, but the electricians insisted repeatedly that they had checked it. When I pulled it off, both setscrews on the coupling were loose and it had ridden up the shaft so that it was rubbing against the gearbox housing enough to melt a blob of aluminum off of the end of the coupling. The tach shaft wasn't keyed, so it was slipping badly and causing the issue. An entire day of troubleshooting for a 5 minute fix...of a problem that they knew to check for because it had happened before and I asked them several times if they'd checked it.



So, the old coupling is a "trophy" that reminds me to "trust but verify" EVERYTHING I'm told about a problem.
 
Two that really come to mind, I was called in at 2:00 am where some engineers had gone to a conveyor not running, they had replaced the dual channel safety relay 3 times using all the spares we had, first thing I noticed is that the 3 replacement ones had blown internal fuses, signs they had crossed the channels over or had a short, turns out they had crossed them, checked the e-stop loop it was open circuit so no short, went to one of the e-stops it was pressed in, replaced the relay with the original all worked, yes it was just someone had pressed the e-stop. Another was a call to a packaging machine, would not start, the engineers had been on it for about 5 hours, I went to the machine, called up the alarm page, Air pressure low, turns out the pressure switch was faulty, temporary fix was to short out the pressure switch, so it appears that instead of doing simple faultfinding ( probably due to lack of good training on diagnostics) 5 hours of lost production there were some very embarassed faces, I ended up doing training on fault finding with all engineers the first thing I taught them was look at the alarms if there is an HMI.
So, I think logical faultfinding is a valuable skill.
 
- Being able to handle 10 people looking over your shoulder while you try to figure out why the machine stopped, or wont start.
- Have enough humility to let someone else test your HMI screen and break it before going on startup.
- Don't always program something the way an Engineer told you, always go check with the operators/production first. They always have some great input that the Engineer didn't think of.
 

Similar Topics

This is a very basic question regarding whenever I close any Display, Library etc. It asks me to save changes all the time even without any edits...
Replies
4
Views
816
I am still learning UL codes and have looked in the document but wasn't sure the right place to look. Please see attached picture. The customer...
Replies
24
Views
6,301
I'm sure Rockwell (and others) software installations would take much less time if the screen wasn't being updated for every single action the...
Replies
13
Views
3,159
Hi all, Do I need Siemens Software Update Service if I only want to keep programming PLCs at my current revision of the software? Can I buy the...
Replies
3
Views
1,313
Hi, When using the generic ethernet module instead of the AOP, will the EDS-file still be necessary? I've seen some programs where I don't...
Replies
4
Views
4,167
Back
Top Bottom