[Andy Baker]

Good thread and excellent questions, Aldo.

Before starting a small business, I worked at Delphi Electronics here in Kokomo, Indiana. When I hired in, the company was a part of GM, called Delco Electronics. The products Delphi Electronics made (and still make) are car radios, air bag sensing modules, engine control modules, and other automotive electronics. Many production lines at Delphi make 6,000-10,000 of these electronic devices each day. In order to do that, these assembly lines are lean and automated.

The department I worked in from 1992-2007 was called "Advanced Equipment Development". We made the custom automation solutions for these production lines. Essentially, we were all robotics engineers, with different specialties. There were project managers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers (we called them controls engineers), and vision engineers. All of us used software. None of us did any fabricating or wiring. We had a shop full of skilled-tradesman who did the hands-on work. (actually, if we did any of that work, the union would file a grievance against us)

I'll describe what we did as we worked on a project:

Project Managers would need to lead the team of engineers working on the project, while being the main customer interface person and also managing all of the estimating and project costs. These managers were older engineers who worked as mechanical or controls engineers within the same department when they were younger. (I was never promoted to Project Manager, which is one of the many reasons why I left Delphi.)

Mechanical Engineers were responsible for these things on an automation (robotic) manufacturing cell:
- Overall layout design, cycle time studies and process flow (while working closely with Project Manager and customer), using CAD designs.
- Specification and choosing many of the components on the system, from sensors to pneumatics, and motor drives and enclosures. The Controls Engineer would request things, and the Project Manager would have to approve things, but the Mechanical Engineer had to CAD everything up, so they were the person who had to specify out most of the items. The engineering came into play when sizing devices and choosing the correct items.
- Mechanical detail design of each aspect of all of the hardware. This was done using the same CAD as in the layout step, but in much more detail.
- Mechanical detail design of custom plastic, metal, machined, formed, and fabricated parts to make the machine work. This may be as simple as a custom spacer to a 60" blanchard ground table with arrays of pockets and holes.
- Assembly and detail prints had to be created and communicated to the rest of the design team (Project Manager, vision engineer, controls engineer), and also the customer
- Any pneumatic schematic needed on the machine was done by the ME.
- All fabricated parts had to be detailed and dimensioned, and then fabricated. If design mistakes were made and then realized during fabrication, the skilled tradesman making the part would be sure to tell the engineer (how that engineer reacted to that critique could kill or enhance the likelihood of the project to go well).
- Assembly of the machine was done by skilled tradesmen, but overseen by the mechanical engineer.
- Debug and fixes to the machine had to be managed by the team, and depending on the fix, the mechanical engineer had to be quick to make a design change.

Electrical Engineer (aka: Controls Engineer):
- This engineer is an Electrical Engineer who could also write machine code on a PLC or PC - based software system, controlling the robot's moves.
- The electrical engineer had to make wiring schematics, showing the needed wiring for the machine. All of this wiring was done by an electrician.
- This engineer would work very closely with an electrician, making sure all electrical aspects of the robot were documented on these schematics.
- Electrical components, wire, electrical enclosures, sensors, computers, and any other digital or electrical components were specified by the electrical engineer AND mechanical engineer.
- All of the code to make the machine move and operate was done by the electrical engineer. This meant that when all of the mechanical stuff was done, and management and customers are standing around, waiting on the machine to be completed, this engineer was the one they were waiting on. They were tweaking code on a PLC program, or a PC based robotic control program, using a variety of software packages.

Vision Engineer:
- This engineer focused only on visual inspection hardware and software within the automated system.
- Special vision software programs (Cognex, Matrox, and others) had to be mastered by this engineer, and they work closely with the vendors of these vision companies
- This engineer has to know optics very well, along with various lighting techniques for automation situations
- This engineer worked closely with the other engineers on the design team, communicating their needs to the ME, EE, and project manager.

This gives a bit more info on these types of robotics engineers. For smaller automation companies, one person may need to do all of these tasks. Larger companies have the luxury of keeping each person focused more on their specialty. For instance, in my 15 years at Delphi, I never had to do an electrical schematic or write any PLC code. At a smaller company, I would have needed to do those things (which, in retrospect, would have been good for me).

I hope this helps.

Andy Baker