How to Build an Automation Team

As a result, securing the best individuals with the right skills, and finding the right balance for each in a larger group is difficult enough for many machine builders. It's even harder these days, when new technological advances arrive so quickly, when many experienced engineers are retiring, and when chronic economic recessions make it hard for companies to invest in areas such as training that too often are viewed as non-essential. All of these factors contribute to much larger, faster-widening and harder-to-close skills gaps in many organizations and teams.

Fortunately, battle-hardened managers and leaders at some machines builders have learned and grown wise in the ways of finding, recruiting and fitting new engineers and other staffers into their teams and operations, and then encouraging cooperation and innovation and managing for long-term competitiveness and success. Sounds simple, but just like anything worthwhile, true team building is easier said than done. Thankfully, it also gets easier with willingness, practice and patience.

Seek Open Minds 

Naturally, building an effective automation team begins with finding the best people, and there are some common attributes that most machine builders seem to focus on in their searches. "We first look for a strong core knowledge in controls or electrical engineering, but also seek people who are open to learning about ancillary kinds of engineering," says Lou Wroblewski, president of Premier Tool Works (www.premiertool.com), Burr Ridge, Ill., which manufactures automated spring detangling machines and other equipment. Premier, which has 15 employees, is a division of Integral Automation. "We need people who care about what's happening on the other side of the shop, and won't get their noses out of joint or feel like a fish out of water when they have to do peripheral tasks. Because we're such a small shop, there's less distance between us, which makes it easy to confer, but everyone has to be more aware of all aspects of each project. Not everyone is suited to this environment, but being versatile and having overlapping skills is even more important in difficult economic times."

Wroblewski recently invented Premier's new 7300 Series high-speed detangling, feeding and dispersing system, which handles larger 5/16x11/2 in. springs for pharmaceutical and medical devices. However, its new high-speed sensors and input cards on PLCs had to be developed using high-speed image capture and photo analysis to learn about the chaotic environment in the new detangler. "We bought a camera and vision system, but we also sent our controls engineer out for training, and he came back and trained the mechanical and electrical guys," he says. "When we need to learn about a new area, we send the person with the closest knowledge and the innate ability to pick up on the new subject. With the 7300, we learned faster about the dynamics of our tooling design and the behavior characteristics of the springs as they were running, and this lets us configure and adjust the machine quicker. This also reduced development time, helped us meet efficiency requirements quicker, and deliver it on time."

Recruiting and Skill Checking

Because colleges and universities still don't teach many necessary control and automation skills, machine builders must make sure potential staffers are well educated, but also willing to be trained in how their organizations and teams practice engineering. This can make for some pretty intense interviews, according to Tommy Pool, electrical engineering manager at Kliklok-Woodman (www.klikwood.com), Decatur, Ga., which builds vertical form, fill, seal (VFFS) and other machines.

"During interviews, I'll put problems on a whiteboard and put candidates on the spot," Pool says. "I'll ask them to draw velocity and position diagrams, sketch a Cat 3 safety circuit with two removable guards and two fixed guards, draw a speed/torque curve of a typical servo or DC motor, or show the math involved in a PID loop. This is all stuff they ought to know, but it can be pretty stressful. Some of them do well and some don't, but it helps us decide who to take a chance on."

Pool also recruits by watching who asks questions in the conference sessions at trade shows. "I look at what people do to keep abreast of new knowledge," he says. "When I interview candidates, I try to look closely at their personality. We won't hire a brilliant guy if he won't fit in. After a certain point, brilliance isn't what we need. I mean, someone could write the most creative, complex code, but it's no good if no one else can follow it."

The typical interview begins with Pool spending about 90 minutes on the phone with a candidate, he adds. If he and Kliklok-Woodman's other leaders decide to bring the candidate into town for a second interview, that day is filled with interviews with individual team members, as well as a couple of hours of testing. "It might take us six months to fill a job, or two days if we find the right person," Pool adds. "My own manager wants me to back off this process, but I say no because of the great team we've been able to put together. We have a good group of guys, who work well together, like to work together, and respect each other."

Clear Communications

After gathering all the necessary members of a team, the most important job in maintaining it is open, clear and continuous communication. Premier Tool has very open meetings and communications, which is crucial to how it builds its machines, Wroblewski says. "For instance, if we need to sense a particular part or spring, but the controls guys find a limit in a sensor, then we can quickly look to the mechanical side, and see if they can adjust the sensor's capabilities. That way, the controls person won't have to try and do the impossible," he explains. "And this is a two-way street."

Pool agrees that many of the old departmental walls have fallen, but some remain. "There's still a divide between mechanical and electrical, but there's no longer a separation between electrical and controls," he says. "In fact, the guy who lays out our panel design does the programming and the on-screen schematics. All our people are cross-functional to some degree, and have to do both fun stuff and some not-so-fun stuff. Meanwhile, because our regular IT staff is still mostly at the business level and doesn't really know about machine integration, we fill that IT gap on the plant floor with controls people. For now, it's still easier for controls guys to learn the IT side than it is for IT people to learn about controls."

Filling Skill Gaps

Because technology and capabilities are always changing, the skills to implement them need constant updating, so managers and their teams must seek and acquire the ones they need.

"We've been selling automated machine tools since the early 1990s, but doing a more robotic automation and integration since 2001," says Chris Tauber, president of Integrated Machinery Systems (IMS, www.imscnc.com) in Itasca, Ill. "We see a lot more projects that need vision components and software, and more users who want to pull data from their equipment. These require more complex skill sets. Many users also add robots between machining centers, and so we've needed more software skills, too." IMS is a distributor and system integrator that works closely with Precision Automation and Robotics of India (PARI, www.parirobotics.com), a system integrator in Pune, India. IMS sells and integrates machining centers, and often adds Fanuc articulated-head robots and PARI's two- and three-axis gantry robots (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Integrated Machinery Systems added a robotics expert to program devices such as a robot with a 600 kg payload, and retrained its existing staff via in-class and on-the-job sessions to do robotic installations and integration.
Integrated Machinery Systems

"Our engineers have electrical and mechanical backgrounds, and they average about 11 years with us," Tauber explains. "When we need new skills, we figure out what our people can do, and then look at what they might be good at next. For the robotics automation, we brought in a new robotics guy to program the Fanuc robots, while the older guys trained on the electrical installations. PARI also does a lot of our design and layout, so we trained with them in classes and on the job. So, we added new abilities, but our team members also have well-defined roles. They even write and take written tests to check if we need more skills or if we need to add another person."

Teamwork Streamlines New Projects

Once a team is chosen, fitted together and trained, its members can begin to pull together as more than the sum of their parts. For instance, about a year ago, a large manufacturer of HVAC appliances asked Ehrhardt Tool and Machine (www.ehrhardttool.com) in Granite City, Ill., to build it a huge new coil-brazing machine for handling, welding and attaching U-shaped return heads to slabs of aluminum coils for air conditioners. Suspended on a platform to keep it 10 ft off the floor, this 15x20x80 ft machine includes 160 torches located along its sides that produce 1.5 billion BTUs (Figure 2). Ehrhardt had built coil brazers before, but never one this big, and the user also wanted to have a GuardLogix safety controller from Rockwell Automation (www.rockwellautomation.com), which would allow more flexibility in machine operation, while saving on cabling by running safety and regular communications on the same network.

Figure 2: To help them build a huge, new coil brazer for handling and welding HVAC coils, the engineering team at Ehrhardt Tool and Machine added extra review meetings and received safety PLC training.
Ehrhardt Tool and Machine

"It was the first machine we did like this, and at first we didn't know if we could do it because we hadn't used or trained on these components before," says Andy Adams, Ehrhardt sales director and former engineering manager. "However, we did some more research, and the team was willing to tackle this project and build it. It had a new design and controls scheme, and to understand its scope, we had to have more review meetings, especially between the mechanical and controls engineers."

For these special projects, Ehrhardt organizes its mechanical, electrical and controls engineers into a team that meshes by talking and meeting often to understand the machine's requirements. The team also internalizes a customer's needs by regularly meeting and teleconferencing with them at the quote, purchase, design, build, testing, installation and later stages of their projects.

"We have a new mechanical engineer who's been on the team for two years, but the other three guys have been with us for 15-20 years, and so this team really evolved over that time," Adams says. "Each engineer still has his own thoughts and needs, of course, but it's been critical that this group standardized its design and building mindset, and so works much better as a true team. For instance, most controls engineers will design their programs differently, but our two have been collaborating for so long that they know what the other is thinking. So, even if they build two separate machines, the controls will be pretty much identical. It's a very good and trustworthy group that gives our customers the best bang for their buck."

To incorporate the safety PLC and other new components, Adams says, the team members got some training from the company's Rockwell representative, but then also did more research and training themselves. The huge, multi-station coil brazer also has a manifold natural gas burner system, material handling system, proximity and photoelectric sensors, thermocouples in its exhaust vent, a virtual private network (VPN) connection to allow remote troubleshooting, and many other components.

"The biggest challenge was the material handling of the thin and delicate coils, which have to be rotated vertically during loading and unloading, but which couldn't be bent or damaged," Adams explains. "We had to build this system from scratch, and kept working so the fins on the coils wouldn't touch anything. The overall part movement is fairly slow, and is performed by numerous VFD-controlled AC motor and chain drives controlled by the same GuardLogix PLC, while handling all the machine safety requirements."

Adams adds that the team's ability to mesh also provides an environment for others in his company to collaborate. "So, if there's a problem during the build, everyone, including the guys in the shop, our plant manager and even customer representatives, will work together," he explains. "We need this kind of teamwork because we don't have time for slip-ups. As a result, when we hire, the main thing we seek is someone who can work and communicate well with the rest of the team, and that's probably not going to be the most knowledgeable person. I'm willing to accept a less-technically experienced candidate who is willing to be part of the team. Our philosophy is that you won't get fired for making a mistake for trying to be innovative, but you will get fired for not being a team player or if you're unwilling to go out on a limb and be creative. As time has gone by, that's how we've been able to retain such a good team."

Similarly, Pool adds that Kliklok-Woodman often has to fill some persistent skill and knowledge gaps that show up in the company's engineering teams. These include some of the machine-related standards, how to protect motors and servos, arc flash methods and rules, how to draw schematics for motor circuits, what components are required by the NFPA 79 electrical standards for industrial machinery, and other topics. Unfortunately, funding isn't always available for training.

Long-Term Care and Feeding

So, once a team is up and running, the leader's job is done, right? Wrong. Like a good parent, a genuine manager's job is never done.

Beyond good pay and benefits, many machine builders and engineers alike report that challenging and meaningful work is what gives them the greatest job satisfaction. Because every team member responds differently, a good manager also will gradually learn who to challenge directly, who to coax more carefully, who to joke with, and even who to let run ahead in a controlled setting and allow to fail—so they can learn from it. In addition, though scheduling some at-work and after-work group activities might seem a bit artificial and forced, it still can produce meaningful relationships. Remembering birthdays is important, too.

"If one team member is having a tough time on a task or project, then the others ask how they can help," Pool says. "This is what creates relationships. Our team plays together; goes to bars and plays trivia games. They've become a group that wants to help each other. In fact, the wife of one fellow, who quit last April, said she still wanted to attend the Christmas dinner we have for team members and spouses."

In fact, sometimes teams actually reverse the usual leadership roles for some projects, according to John Ertle, sales manager for Criterion Manufacturing Solutions (www.criterionms.com) in Comstock Park, Mich., whose seven or eight engineers and support staff make CNC routers and CMM gauging equipment for automakers.

"We always need versatile team members and a leader who can fill in and cover any project area," Ertle says. "Just yesterday, I was working on a machine with one of our guys who usually reports to me. I told him he had to be the boss on this one because he was more familiar with it. So he got me up to speed, and he directed me about what needed to be done. We're able to communicate well enough about what needs to be done and what the expectations are for each project. It's gotten easier over the years, and we've found the right mix of optimistic, realistic, detail-oriented, big picture-focused and imaginative people to make it happen."

Logically, many of the methods used to educate and encourage individuals and teams also can be used to grow effective managers and leaders. "When we need to hire a manager, we look for many of the characteristics that we look for in our team members," Pool says. "We ask, ‘Is this a guy that can take us where we want to go?' So the candidate has to ask himself, ‘Is this a place where I can build the team I want?' One of the last questions I ask is, ‘You now know if you can do the job as we've described it, but is this a job that you want to be doing in 10 years? Does it fit your career goals?' And if they don't have a goal like this, then they're probably not the dreamer that we need to be on our team."

User Clarity Reduces Stress

Besides making sure internal communications are clear, an effective team also needs open, specific communications with its customers, so everyone knows the procedure and expected results for each project. This can take a lot of stress off a team's collective shoulders.

"One of the keys to a successful team and integration effort is having very specific, written project requirements," Tauber says. "Lack of project definition can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings and finger-pointing because there are so many variables in both small and large automation projects. So we barrage customers with questions they think are minutiae in the beginning, but later realize are pretty crucial."

Customers need to build teams, too, Pool adds. "We often get requests full of undefined buzzwords, like ‘We want Ethernet connectivity,' but the client doesn't know what they want it for, and so our team doesn't really have a clue what to do with it," he explains. "Do they want Ethernet for safety, coordinated motion, a machine-to-machine interface, or just to grab data off a machine? If we can define specific needs and requests, and get on the same page as the customer, it really can help our team function well, too."