A lot of operations leaders are carrying the weight of a build-out deadline at this scale right now, and nobody outside the plant is really saying it out loud. The medical and industrial gas supply chain is being rebuilt, in real time, under a stack of compliance rules that took effect inside the last twelve months — and the engineers and integrators tasked with bringing those lines online are watching their staffing calendars get tighter by the week.
One of those builds is open in Auburn Hills, Michigan today. A new automated O2 bottle handling system needs final program development, build-out, and debug. Siemens PLC and HMI on the logic side. Fanuc robots on the handling side. Mon-Fri, eight to nine hours a day. From ASAP through end of August, possibly longer.
We have the PLC Programmer seat. The customer set the rate at $60.00 per hour, transparent on the listing, and we are showing it openly. On Automate America, the market clears the question in public — we don’t pre-screen rates, we don’t gate them behind a recruiter, and we don’t tell customers what their work is worth. Applicants self-select. Comments do what comments do. The platform is the surface where supply and demand actually meet.
The Contract
A new automated O2 bottle handling system is being installed and commissioned in Auburn Hills. The customer is bringing on a PLC Programmer to handle final program development, build-out, and debug — to write the logic, validate the I/O, and walk the line into first article alongside the rest of the integration crew.
The headline numbers:
- Role: PLC Programmer
- Location: Auburn Hills, Michigan
- Start date: ASAP
- Duration: through end of August (possibly longer)
- Shift: Days · 8 to 9 hours per day · Mon-Fri
- Rate: $60.00 per hour
- Stack: Siemens PLC + HMI · Fanuc robots
- Application: Automated O2 bottle handling equipment
- Scope: Final program development, build-out, and debug of a new automated manufacturing system
That is the listing. The rate is what the customer chose to post; the platform is showing it as-is. If you are the kind of PLC programmer who reads the SOW and already sees the I/O list, you know whether the scope fits you in the first paragraph.
The Stack
The stack is the textbook gold-standard combination for compliance-grade automated handling work:
- Siemens PLC + HMI — the logic and operator-interface backbone. The customer has not specified a product family on the public listing; expect TIA Portal-class development as the default, but confirm at engagement.
- Fanuc robots — the handling, pick-and-place, and any vision-guided motion in the cell. Model family unspecified on the listing.
Two recommended public training resources for any engineer wanting to deepen on this stack: Siemens SCE Training, and Fanuc America Training Services.
Why an Automated O2 Bottle Line — and Why Now
The medical and industrial gas supply chain is being rebuilt as we speak. A new FDA cGMP rule for medical gases took effect at the end of 2025, tightening manufacturing practice, labeling, and post-marketing safety requirements across the industry. The ISO 13485:2016 quality management system standard became effectively mandatory for medical gas operations in February 2026 as the Quality Management System Regulation took effect. The medical oxygen cylinder market itself crossed $4.93 billion this year and is projected to reach $6.39 billion by 2031, driven by respiratory care demand, healthcare infrastructure investment, and the lingering supply-chain crunch that pandemic-era surge volumes never fully resolved.
What does it actually take to be a compliant operator in that market in 2026? It takes traceability at the cylinder level. It takes recipe and batch control that survives an FDA inspection. It takes alarm management, valve interlocks, and operator-action logging that the legacy hand-staffed bottle lines never produced. It takes Siemens PLC + HMI logic with the recipe-and-batch layer baked in, and it takes Fanuc robotic handling that doesn’t fatigue, doesn’t miscount, and doesn’t put a high-pressure cylinder in the wrong rack.
What conditions would need to be true for a four-month specialist contract on this exact stack to feel like the obvious move? Just one thing — name it. The conditions are already true. The platform is already where the right specialist is.
Auburn Hills — and the Michigan Automation Corridor
Auburn Hills, Michigan sits at the geographic center of one of the densest concentrations of industrial automation expertise in North America. The Detroit-area controls scene has been a generational training ground for PLC programmers, robotics integrators, controls engineers, and machine-build technicians serving the automotive, packaging, food-and-beverage, and medical-device industries. The PLC Programmer who steps into the Auburn Hills bottle-handling cell is doing it within a two-hour drive of more than three hundred automation suppliers, system integrators, and OEM controls shops.
That is part of why this contract exists where it does. The build needs a specialist who has run Siemens and Fanuc together on a regulated handling line before — and mid-Michigan has more of those specialists per square mile than almost anywhere else in the country.
What Automate America Is
Automate America is a marketplace — and an automation service company. We are not a staffing agency. We are not a recruiter posting other people’s needs and skimming a margin. We are the platform where thousands of verified automation professionals across North America connect directly with the customers who need their work done.
Customers post contracts, jobs, and RFQs for free. There is no listing fee, no engagement minimum, no recruiter-style markup on the contractor rate, and no gatekeeping on what the customer chooses to pay. The customer sets the rate. The platform shows it transparently. The market — qualified applicants in the network and engineers in the comment threads — speaks for itself. The customer reviews the qualified profiles and decides who to talk to.
You’re the kind of plant manager or engineering director who already sees that a four-month build-out isn’t an employee search — it’s a specialist contract. That clarity is the only reason most lines ship on time. We built Automate America for that clarity.
A Few Common Customer Questions
Is it really free to post? Yes. Posting a contract, a job, or an RFQ on Automate America costs nothing.
Will I get flooded with unqualified applicants? No. You see profiles of experienced industry professionals, and you decide who to talk to. The volume is qualified.
How fast does specialized work fill? You see qualified applicants within minutes of posting. Specialist stacks like the one above don’t sit open — the network is already there.
What if we need a hand? Reach out anytime. We are a message away at info@automateamerica.com.
On the Rate
A word about the $60-per-hour rate, because it is going to come up.
We are not the customer. The customer set the rate. The platform is showing it transparently because that is what a real marketplace does — it lets the market price the work in public, not behind closed doors. If the rate is the right number for the scope, qualified applicants will say yes inside an hour of seeing the post. If it is not, the market will say so too — in applications declined, in comments, in counter-offers. That conversation, in public, is the algorithm. That is how a specialist contract clears in days instead of weeks.
The customer who posts on Automate America is making a public market call. The engineers reading the post are making the response. The platform is the surface. We don’t put a thumb on the scale in either direction.
The Bigger Picture
There is a generational story being written across American manufacturing right now. Battery towns are coming online where steel towns used to be. Semiconductor fabs are rising in greenfield sites that haven’t seen heavy industry in fifty years. And the medical and industrial gas supply chain — the unglamorous infrastructure layer that keeps hospitals running, welders welding, and food-grade processing flowing — is being rebuilt to a compliance bar that didn’t exist three years ago.
Every one of those lines is a Controls Engineer, a PLC programmer, a robotics integrator, a SCADA developer, a panel-build technician, and a commissioning crew. Every one of those jobs is a contract — most of them specialized, most of them time-bound, most of them needing the right person inside of a week.
A year from now, this hiring cycle will look like the moment American manufacturing stopped treating four-month builds as employee searches. The operations leaders who matched the staffing model to the scope are the ones whose lines shipped on time.
How to Take Action
If you are a PLC programmer with Siemens PLC and HMI development experience and Fanuc robot programming on your résumé — particularly with experience on automated handling lines for medical, industrial gas, or other compliance-grade applications — the Auburn Hills contract is open right now: Apply on Automate America →
If you are a plant manager, a VP of engineering, an operations director, or an integrator with specialized automation work that needs to fill — the work the recruiters can’t find a candidate for in a reasonable window — post it free on Automate America. Set your own rate: Post your own contract free →
You already know what kind of contract this is. You read the SOW and saw the project plan. The post button is just where the math lands.
Thank you for reading — and thank you to every engineer, integrator, and customer building the next generation of American manufacturing.
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— Tony Wallace
Founder, Automate America
