Today’s topic concerns an area that affects engineers, technicians and sometimes even office personnel and yes, management. A major part of building anything involves accurately designing and describing the thing that is to be built. If all of the required …
Have you ever been to Genba? Let me take you to a mystical, wonderful land that far too many people overlook in their travels. Genba is a Japanese word that means “the actual (or the real) place”. To understand a …
Today’s post is the second “advanced” topic I have covered on PLC ladder logic, The first being toggle circuits. It is often necessary to track data on individual parts through a machine or production line. If using devices like barcode/datamatrix …
Ladder Logic 302: Data Tracking and Structure Data Type Read more »
For the past 20 years I have been involved in the automation and machine-building industry in one form or another. In 1996 when I had a lot more energy and less common sense, I started my own integration business that …
There is a great emphasis in today’s workplace on getting more done in less time. In simplified terms efficiency as it relates to individual productivity is the amount (or cost) of work performed in a given period of time. While …
Today’s post is the first “advanced” topic I have covered in this blog. By advanced, I mean that rather than covering basic information on Ladder Logic and program structure like I did in my 100 Series, or general programming routines …
So… what do you do? Whenever I travel and meet new people this is a question I regularly get asked. It used to be a fairly simple question to answer… “I sell automation equipment”, or “I run a small machine …
Well, its official: after something like three years from initially concepting the book I finally have it in my hands. Now the task of promoting it and leveraging it into a different career direction begins. As I mentioned in a …
Last week I had the privilege of sitting in a doctor’s exam room for about 45 minutes with nothing to do. Next to me was an exam table (not the one shown above…) that brought back some old memories. Back …
As safety systems become more and more complex (primarily because of the influence of European safety standards), the cost-effectiveness of safety PLCs has improved. I first noticed Safety PLCs being used only about five or six years ago, though according …
