Trained Personel

Do you have at least one trained person per shift to maintain and troubleshoot your plant PLCs?

Is your maintenance staff trained on the PLC? (Silly to squander over a couple thousand in maintenance training when the lack of PLC knowledge could cost you 10 thousand an hour.  ... or worse. I can give you a couple good reasons why you should have at least one trained person per shift, to work reliably with PLCs. You do not want to see greater downtime on off shifts because the knowledge base is on day shift only. Also with all the baby boomers (our core knowledge base in the industry) about to retire, it is not smart management to place all your eggs in one basket.

Then the question should be asked, what should we look for in training. Well I have been training individuals for over a decade and could easily write another article on just PLC training alone. I can tell you here, that you should seek training with two primary objectives.

1. The training you decide on, should stress working with PLCs in a Safe and Reliable way. (not just textbook knowledge or self learned knowledge)
2. Secondly, the training should be actually centered around the PLC products you are using or plan to use in your facility.

I feel the two criteria above are the most important. Some other good ideas to get more out of your PLC training investment would be to get hands on training using the actual PLC programs and software the maintenance technician will be working with in the facility. Insure your personnel have the software, equipment and encouragement to continue with self education. PLC Training CBT (Computer Based Training) CDs are a great way for employees to follow up 6 months after the initial training. Some other ideas you could do is to provide them with simulation software and/or a spare PLC off the shelf to practice with.