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Originally Posted by Christina
: What is the greatest highlight of your engineering career so far? And, what was the worst part of your engineering career so far?
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I work as a Controls Engineer. I do electrical design and software for automation machinery. I also program robots and vision systems. The company I work for designs automated machinery for mostly automotive companies, medical, food, electronics and packaging.
I really enjoy my job because I get to see my work from start to finish. The mechanical engineer designs the machine and I design the electrical and do the software programming for the machine. So from a blank piece of paper to a running machine, is a process that takes about 10-16 weeks normally. Every machine I design, I have to go to the customer’s plant and do what's called a "run off". So I get so see my work complete and feel very good about it. I've been involved in machinery projects from diapers to alternator modules that go on a 2007 corvette. The biggest project I did was in England for a company called Weebix. It was a project in the millions; they made cereal bars for the people in England. It was an awesome project when done.
Thinks I like:
1. I get to travel to places here in the USA and overseas. Though, it’s starting to wear on me with a family now.
2. I get to design and spec the parts and components I need to make the application work.
3. I get to play with a lot of cool off the shelf “toys” such as robots, vision cameras, radio frequency tags, (RFID), bar codes, printers, ascii stuff…etc, etc…
4. I get to see my design running in a production facility.
Out of everything I do, I am like a huge sponge. I have learned so much, I love to give back anyway I can. I’ve written lots of whitepapers and uploaded several examples of automation things I’ve learned to new upcoming engineers in my field. Basically, it’s the “good” feeling I get after working on each project. Plus always getting to see something made at the factory one to two years before the rest of the world does…like the steering wheel and air bag module of 2008 Toyotas….or I got to see both the Ford Mustang and Corvette models, pictures and various parts that the Tier 1 suppliers make, like the place Andy Baker works for. Learning things, like all Toyotas models have the SAME fuel pump installed them, but then finding out that FORD has over 600 different fuel pumps...geez...no wonder....
The bad…..
There a few things that really bothers me. If I screw up my software, I break things and feel pretty bad about it. Like for example there is a device we call an index table that is the center piece of some automation machines. If the software isn’t quite right, and devices aren’t clear “interlocked” from the index table, and the index table moves while other things are moving….well….things tend to break. I’ve done that “once” in my 13 years. It cost a lot of money to fix it. I’ve also crashed many EOATS on robots. EOATS aren’t cheap either. Although, I’ve never gobbled up a robot in a mold machine yet. I’ve programmed some pretty big robots like Yushins and Wittmans.
The next thing I hate is learning that a piece of automation will replace “x” number of people. But at the same time, automation makes it easier on people so they aren’t so strained etc…if we don’t automate a process; it probably ends up in Mexico or China. I think some companies realize that a robot can build it for the same price as Mexico or China labor rates, so at least the company remains in the USA, but all their workforce is laid off either way you look at that…take a look at this pro-robot company website:
http://www.saveyourfactory.com/
The final thing is safety….because we build automation, each machine has it’s own custom safety circuit. 10 years ago, I wasn’t as safety conscience as I am now. Also 10 years ago the USA standard on machinery was Category 1 safety with single circuit e-stop. Most people “other control engineers I learned from” designed safety circuit with relays that did not have a safety rating on them, like using a motor starter for a safety relay. There was this one time that I followed suit and I used a mini-motor starter as an MCR (master control relay) that controls an e-stop condition on a machine that runs a conveyor. There was an e-stop pull cable down the length of this conveyor and an operator lady, got her hair caught in the conveyor belt, she pulled the e-stop cable, but the conveyor didn’t stop. It pulled out some of her hair. After checking, the relay I had used, the contacts welded shut, and the e-stop did not work. But the lesson here is that you learn from your mistakes. I now design Category 4 safety using safety relays with dual monitoring and dual contacts etc, etc. Basically I personally adopted the European Standard for safety and I have continued to improve safety on each and every machine I am involved with. I get in arguments with the mechanical engineer all the time about adding this and that guarding on the machine, but it’s because I don’t ever want to be responsible for hurting anyone ever again…..