Technology in Manufacturing Was INFO: Technology Stocks

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Bill Sturm

At 09:47 PM 3/22/2001 -0600, Curt Wuollet wrote: >You in the automation industry have rushed and strived to participate >in the "dumbing down" of your profession. And from everything I've >read and the dialogs I've had on this list, you'll fight tooth and >nail to keep it that way. Nothing more challanging allowed. Any >divergent ideas are to be scorned. "We _need_ to use what the rest >of the company uses, period." >Congratulations! You've achieved your goal of standardizing on the >lowest common denominators. IS is climbing out of that slowly and >moving forward again. Doing new things with new tools that don't >come in the Windows box. Maybe management is right. Right on, Curt. I wonder what the solution is... One obvious idea is to use advanced automation and hire or train qualified (read higher priced) technicians to maintain it. This must not be cost effective for many manufacturing companies. A widget maker needs to justify all of this extra cost somehow. At the same time they are under extreme pressure to reduce costs. We could also design advanced systems with built in diagnostics so that an operator or maintenance employee with knowledge of the process could diagnose the machine. This idea may appeal to production management and also create more work for controls engineers. It would also raise the cost of each automation project, which may make this option look unattractive to the accounting department. I like this option. Control engineers can help themselves by using better technology in their projects, even if it effects the companies ability to maintain the equipment in the near term. If the benefits of advanced automation are really there, companies will figure out how to keep it running. If you afraid of spending a few long evenings to support some new ideas, then you must not want it too much. I have introduced new ideas many times, it is not easy. You must work long days to make it work, at first. It does get better. Eventually the new ideas will become accepted and more widely supported. But do not complain about low paying industrial technology jobs if you are not willing to put in some effort to improve your situation. Pioneering is difficult, but sometimes it should be done and hopefully the payback will be there in the future. Maybe we must work some unpaid hours to add diagnostics to some new type of control so that it can be maintained. Short term we will make less dollars/hour, but in the long run we will hopefully see increased demand for these advanced controls systems. Only then will the supply and demand curve tilt in our favor. Bill Sturm
 
Hello Bill, Do you feel better now! So, you look to me either a young, non initiated person or an irreductible old cow (like me): sorry for both "old" & "cow". Profession is synonymous of "chinese floor": nails inside or out, or cut if necessary. For the last 40 years I was in profession, the pneumatic Foxboro model 40 (worked so nice). Then came "Analog Electronics" (fine). Then came the numerical Instrumentation. Nothing better. In this forum, most problems are about communications and associated. It's shaking hands only. Gadget on gadget. The average technical background is far back, what it used to be 30 years ago. And the inventivity very low. I welcome your upset about the profession. Many times on the forum, I made the right offer for the right problem (I'm an old cat too). They don't say thanks... They are not curious about their own problem so, manufacturers enjoy fooling them, again and again. Bill, have a nice day. jmG
 
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Michael Griffin

At 11:32 24/03/01 -0500, Bill Sturm wrote: <clip> >We could also design advanced systems with built in diagnostics >so that an operator or maintenance employee with knowledge of the >process could diagnose the machine. This idea may appeal to production >management and also create more work for controls engineers. <clip> Actually, all of the machines I have seen built for some time now have some form of built in diagnostics. I wouldn't consider buying a machine that didn't. I have found that in recent years a much larger percentage of a PLC program is involved in making the machine easier to use than was the case in the past. What was considered an acceptable degree of user friendliness 10 years ago would be completely unacceptable today. This is necessary because new equipment is becoming increasingly more sophisticated and the plant would become unsupportable if all a machine did was flash a "fault" light at us. >Control engineers can help themselves by using better technology in their >projects, even if it effects the companies ability to maintain the >equipment in the near term. You can go out of business in the near term if you are not carefull though. >If the benefits of advanced automation are really there, companies >will figure out how to keep it running. If you afraid of spending a few long >evenings to support some new ideas, then you must not want it too much. <clip> What works even better than long hours is good design, good documentation, thorough operator and maintenance training, and useful machine diagnostics. The people who can provide these are the ones who can make money for companies that employ them. >Maybe we must work some unpaid hours to add diagnostics to some new type of >control so that it can be maintained. Short term we will make less >dollars/hour, but in the long run we will hopefully see increased demand >for these advanced controls systems. Only then will the supply and demand >curve tilt in our favor. <clip> Customers should go to some length to specify the degree of diagnostics, parameters screens, status information, etc. that they require in their machines. They should review the screens and functionality while it is being designed (and before the PLC program is written). If they pay extra for that - so be it. It is worth every penny spent. The cost of these features is absolutely *nothing* compared to down time and air freight. I don't know of anyone who has ever had any direct involvement with keeping production going who would disagree with me. The only people who don't value these features seem to be in companies with project "engineers" who can wash their hands of the machine as soon as it is in the door. If rather, your mistakes are made to haunt you forever, you tend to take a different view of things. P.S. With regards to how this subject got started, has anyone who thought things looked good in the IT world looked at the stockmarket lately? Anyone who has been reading The Economist for the past couple of years wouldn't be surprised at what has happened there - the only surprise is why it took so long to happen. Last week's issue seems to imply that now that the big American "New Economy bubble" has popped, most of the companies that were involved in it (at least those which survive) will be experiencing slower growth for some time to come. There is a big hang over of excess capacity and unservicable debt to liquidate before normal growth can resume. Much of the money that was invested there will never be recovered. As for the employees of these companies which some people have so enviously commented on - what do you suppose will happen to them once these companies have run through the rest of their investment capital? The markets are closed to them, and they have no revenues. Even some of the larger seemingly more solid companies are also in trouble. If all of their "dot-com" and "new telecom" customers are broke, who will buy their hardware? Much of their recent past revenues are fictitous, as these supposed sales were all on credit (or sometimes paid in shares) to companies who will very shortly no longer exist. More than a few companies turned out to have accounts that were more wishfull thinking than hard fact. If you work for a company that makes products that have real customers, and produces genuine profits, you can at least comfort yourself with the thought that your company will probably still exist a year from now. ********************** Michael Griffin London, Ont. Canada [email protected] **********************
 
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Curt Wuollet

Hi Bill We're working on the solution: www.linuxplc.com Automation for engineers. And for everyone else. Short term: Communications. If people think anyone can do your job they obviously don't know enough about what you're doing. Publish, Involve management in what you're doing. Ask for their sage advice, they love it. I like you second solution too. There is no reason that engineers and users have to interact with the system at the same level. And as far as cost, there are huge opportunities to make development more efficient and less failure prone. Suppose you could start a project with 90% of what you need and just add the rest. That's the way OSS works and we are trying to extend that to automation. A lot of time is spent in chasing down information or dealing with the lack of information. Having a platform where this isn't secret is like having factory support on site all the time, only better. This is also how we turn this back into a knowlege intensive business, only for the right reasons and little downside. If you can do more with less rework, fewer workarounds and absolute knowlege of what's there, you're worth more money and you get a better system. If all you do is drag around black boxes, well............ Regards cww
 
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At 11:57 PM 3/26/2001 -0500, you wrote: > Actually, all of the machines I have seen built for some time now >have some form of built in diagnostics. I wouldn't consider buying a machine >that didn't. Makes sense. I historically worked with retrofits of older equipment and diagnostics have typically not been offered. On a new machine they should be standard. I am starting to get more into OEM type controls, this is certainly helping my interest in diagnostics. > >If the benefits of advanced automation are really there, companies > >will figure out how to keep it running. If you afraid of spending a few > long > >evenings to support some new ideas, then you must not want it too much. ><clip> > What works even better than long hours is good design, good >documentation, thorough operator and maintenance training, and useful >machine diagnostics. The people who can provide these are the ones who can >make money for companies that employ them. You got me there. I agree that proper design and training should minimize support problems on new controls. The reason that I mentioned the long hours is that is the objection that I hear over and over for using any "non-standard" control. "If you use "that" control, you will have to maintain it forever, and they will call you at 3 AM to fix it" According to many, that is the curse for not using a "standard" PLC. Even if a PLC is not the right tool for the job, most people I have dealt with will use a PLC anyhow. This is to avoid the "maintenance nightmare". I would rather use the right tool for the job and design it so that it can be maintained. This may take extra time, at first. Those are the long evenings that I was referring to. Bill Sturm
 
I don't know how you guys got into this profession. I got into it because this made me feel like God. Make things happen as if by magic. I still feel that way. But I guess I am one of the rare species now. Jim I suppose you were proud what you were doing and you were appreciated then. But now the situation is not so. If I go to try to buy something better for controls, it gets lost under the purchase papers for IT upgrades, computers and ERPs which everybody knows does not work. Not that the company derives great benefit, the boss gets the benefit. He is appreciated as one of the top guys who has vision because he spends on IT. For him a slightly more featured valve is useless and I have to go to the lowest bid for it. We are victims of a whirl wind of information. But as Micheal pointed out they are coming back to ground. But are control engineers really in a position to capitalise even if things get better. I made a bet with my professor that the control system implemented by me in a plant will not be used and i won because when we went there nearly 75% of the controllers were in manual mode. That is not all. Any plant I visit I find the PIDs wrongly tuned and and most cases still in the default settings. A lot of attention is paid to controls . But the dirty-looking valve positioner is totally out of sync and hardly gives any performance benefit the controller could give. We are too obsessed with a complicated system that the minor but essential things are missed out. We also lack the general overview. The IT guys faced the same problem of trying to get across big bosses. But they made it by doing a good marketing showing a lot of saving and cost of return. But we control engineers tend to behave as techies and hardly bother on economics concentrating on the more interesting problems but not bothering about its return on investments. But then all this needs pride in what we do. I find my colleagues more interested in displaying VC++ magazines and their membership in various computer communities and don't find the time to go through the number of free control magazines which they get. Not that I believe that by reading these would make a better control engineer. Just that it shows a casualness towards this field. It is no point complaining on issues which are not in our control.
 
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