a PLC maintenance engineer

Never heard of such a job. One of the reasons why people use PLCs because they don't need any maintenance.

I WANT that job!!

yeah true there is no such maintenance for PLC. There is only replacement of either of the PLC card or full PLC replacement. There can be only modification of programs stored in PLC if u have authentication to do so.

PLC are maintenance free computers

Not to be argumentative, but after twenty some years in maintenance and experiencing the quest for profit slowly change companies views of Maintenance, I have to disagree that PLC's are maintenance free. Everything requires maintenance, people, animals, machines, electronics. Cards fail and need replacement, components fail, outside influences damage them. Production changes necessitate program and hardware changes. The dramatic lack of attention paid to the training of operators forces more changes, more automated control, which in turn requires more maintenance. The never ending quest for increased production speeds, all of these thing require maintenance. Everthing requires maintenance, whether or not people care to believe it.

I'll have to agree with If_I_Only_Knew_Then that PLCs are not maintenance free in the sense that the parts will eventually go bad.

However, a well-made PLC is almost maintenance free. It doesn't have any parts that need adjustment. If the control system is properly designed and installed, the modules will last longer than the maintenance technician's employment (especially nowadays). I've been working in the same factory for almost 16 years and the modules and processors that I installed when I first came in are still chugging along happily.

My point is, if the technician's job is just to maintain PLCs, he will have very little to do. Even if he keeps inspecting it everyday, watching over something that hardly fails will get boring quickly.

My guess is, PLC maintenance will not be the only job you'll be doing. There will be other things for you to do. I hope you learn what those are before you accept the job.

regards,

Vulcan

I was being a little facetious in my initial reply, hoping to goad the OP into explaining himself a little more. In reality, PLC maintenance is sometimes necessary, but in order for it to be a full-time position with a title such as that, a facility would need to have thousands of PLCs! The reality is that this typically falls under the auspices of a Controls or Process Engineer, one who is responsible for code writing etc, and the actual maintenance is a trivial part of that job.

I have to admit to an over sensitivity to the term maintenance free. Companies seem to like to invent titles for their particular needs. Exactly what a PLC maintenance engineer would be doing would be dependant upon the companies description. However after many years working in a food production facility, I have seen just about everything you could imagine happening to our controls. We had many machines of a semi portable manner, being moved from production line to production line. What fell under maintenance generally was due to carelessness or lack of knowlege. From high pressure washings, to being dumped in cheese vats, operators who thopught if they just banged it hard enough it would do what they wanted.

I guess my point was that over the years I have seen companies commitment to maintenance diminish as it began to be viewed less as an investment to keep the equipment in proper condition and more as a drain of money that produced nothing. Idealy engineerine, production and maintenance should be working hand in hand, and in my experience that is happening less and less today. Granted there is lots of lip service paid to it, but in reality the bean counters sitting in an office somewhere far away are the determining factor, much to the detriment of everyone.

As above, periodic replacement of the memory sustaining battery should be the only real activity. Hurrah for PPM!

I think I'm starting to understand what your real question is.

You want to know how to troubleshoot a problem and find the solution.

The first step is to know your process and/or factory. Or at least you should have the documentation.

The second step to proper troubleshooting is clear and accurate description of the problem. From your original post and last post (where you tried to clarify your original post) you need to improve on that.

The third step is to come up with a list of all the possible causes based on the symptoms. When I say all, I mean all.

Next, you analyze the causes. Do the symptoms explain the causes? The trick is to find the cause that explains all the symptoms. If it doesn't you probably have more than one cause.

Having identified the possible cause, you need to test it. Is it really the cause of the problems?

Finally, once you identify the cause, you proceed to the solution.

Nowadays, we add another step: how can you prevent it from happening again?

regards,

Vulcan

I retired from the Automotive manufacturing industry (as a maintenance Tech) three years ago. We had mainternance engineers (engineers in the maintenance dept.) who kept up to date on the latest and greatest plc and robotic applications available. They, in turn, kept the plcs, etc. we used at the optimum performance levels, and laid out new programs, and changes to existing programs for the maintenance technicans. They also assisted maint techs when they ran into an abnormal problem and required additional help. Is this the type of position you are inquiring about?

Thank u so much , I'd really appreciate if you provide me with some titles of books about the PLC's troubleshooting ,,a book or many that give practical thoughts and ideas in the PLC troubleshooting ….

,,,,,,,,,,,, Hearing from U soon ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,