The Engineer Who Makes Them Agree: An Omron Controls Contract in Greensburg, Indiana
Quick answer: A Honda-standard automotive final-assembly line in Greensburg, Indiana needs a controls engineer, starting immediately and running through the end of October. The requirement is Omron PLC programming (CX-One) with at least three years of Omron experience; strong pluses are familiarity with Honda's electrical hardware and programming standards, Yaskawa drives commissioning, and PILZ safety-PLC programming. It is weekend work — 12-hour days, two days a week, travel Friday and Monday (and possibly working some Mondays). It pays $60.48 per hour, with travel time paid at that same rate, plus a $70/day per diem (no receipts), a $130/day hotel allowance, and mileage at $0.725 per mile. You can view and apply on the contract page free, or, if you are hiring, post your own work free or search the marketplace and request a professional directly.
What it actually takes to come up clean on a Monday
Picture a final-assembly line at the end of a weekend shutdown, the moment before restart. For it to run Monday morning, four different things all have to be true at once. The Omron PLC program has to be right. The Yaskawa drives have to be commissioned and tuned. The robots have to be in sync with the logic. And the PILZ safety system has to certify — every E-stop, every light curtain, every gate — before anyone is legally allowed to press start.
Each of those is its own discipline, with its own software, its own conventions, and its own way of failing. Omron's CX-One suite covers the PLC logic in CX-Programmer and the HMI in CX-Designer. Drive commissioning is a motion-and-tuning world of its own. And functional safety — the PILZ PNOZmulti side — is a standards-bound discipline that reaches performance levels like PL e and SIL 3 and does not care how good your ladder logic is if the safety loop won't validate.
Now ask how many engineers you know who are genuinely fluent in all four of those at the same time. Not "have seen." Fluent. That number is small, and everyone in this industry knows it.
The gap this contract lives in
Plenty of engineers can write an Omron program. Fewer can also commission a Yaskawa drive. Fewer still can configure and certify a PILZ safety circuit. And the number who can do all three to Honda's standards, on the same line, on the same weekend is a very short list.
That short list is exactly who this contract is written for. It is not a single-PLC job and it is not a robot-teaching job. It is a systems-integration and functional-safety role — the person who owns the handshake between every box on the line, and who the other trades wait on when the line won't come up. If you have spent a career being that person, you already recognized the role two lines into the requirements.
- Role: Controls Engineer — 1 needed
- Location: Greensburg, Indiana (Decatur County, southeast of Indianapolis)
- Application: Automotive final assembly
- Required: Omron PLC programming — CX-One — with 3+ years of Omron experience
- Strong pluses: Honda electrical & programming standards · Yaskawa drives commissioning · PILZ safety-PLC programming
- Start: Immediate · Runs through: the end of October
- Schedule: Weekend work — 12-hour days, 2 days per week; travel Friday and Monday, possibly working some Mondays
- Rate: $60.48 per hour — travel time paid at the same rate
- Expenses: $70/day per diem (no receipts) · $130/day hotel · $0.725/mile
Why it pays what it pays
$60.48 an hour reads like a premium until you count what it replaces. One engineer who covers the PLC, the drives and the safety is one schedule, one point of accountability, and one person who owns the seam between all of it — instead of three separate contractors pointing at each other when the line won't certify on Sunday night. Measured that way, the single fluent engineer is not the expensive option. They are the cheap one.
The rest of the terms respect the same logic. Travel time is paid at the full $60.48 — your Friday and Monday travel are on the clock, not donated. The per diem is $70 a day and needs no receipts. The hotel is covered at $130 a day, and mileage runs $0.725 per mile. And the structure is a two-day week: 12-hour weekend days, with Monday through Thursday left to you. For an engineer already carrying weekday work or running a shop, that is not a compromise — it is the reason a contract like this is worth taking.
Greensburg, and the Honda way of doing things
This is a Honda town, and that matters more to a controls engineer than it does to almost anyone else on the floor. Honda has manufactured in America since 1979, and its Indiana Auto Plant in Greensburg has been building vehicles since 2008 — a plant that has since passed three million vehicles.
What that means in practice is that Honda runs its lines to its own electrical hardware and programming standards, and this contract says so directly: familiarity with those standards is listed as a plus. Read that not as bureaucracy but as a signal. A plant that specifies its own standards is a plant that expects the handoff to be clean, the documentation to be right, and the next engineer who opens the program to understand it. That is a good place to be the person who does careful work — because careful work is the thing being paid for.
Why Indiana, and why a weekend
Indiana quietly runs one of the densest automotive and supplier bases in the country, and Greensburg sits an easy run southeast of Indianapolis. That geography is exactly what makes a weekend contract like this one workable: travel in Friday on the clock, work the two long days the line actually needs, and be back Monday with the hotel and mileage covered. In much of the country that arithmetic does not close. Here it does — which is a large part of why specialized controls work concentrates in this corridor.
Why this fills on Automate America
Automate America is a global marketplace of thousands of skilled professionals across hundreds of occupations, in every industry — industrial, commercial and residential — worldwide. Not a staffing desk. A marketplace, where the company and the professional can see each other directly.
It works two ways, and both are free. A company can post a contract, a job, or an RFQ and let qualified professionals come to it — or skip the wait and search the marketplace and request the exact professional it needs. Professionals can browse open hourly contracts, apply in a couple of clicks, and follow the companies whose work they want to see first. Everyone carries their own record — trusted professionals with completed contracts and customer reviews.
For the hiring side, the usual hesitations answer themselves. Is it really free to post? Yes — posting a contract, a job, or an RFQ costs nothing. Will you get buried in unqualified applicants? No — you see profiles of experienced industry professionals and you decide who to talk to. How fast does specialized work fill? You see qualified applicants within minutes of posting. And if you need a hand, you are one message away at info@automateamerica.com.
A role that needs Omron, drives and PILZ safety in the same person, to a named plant standard, is exactly the kind of narrow, urgent, cross-discipline ask a general job board handles worst and a marketplace handles best. There is no clean keyword for "owns the handshake between four systems." There are, however, professionals here who do. They work alongside the rest of the bench — controls engineers, automation engineers and maintenance technicians — the crew that keeps a final-assembly line breathing. For platform depth, the source materials live with Omron and Pilz directly.
You already know if it's yours
If you can hold an Omron program, a Yaskawa drive and a PILZ safety loop in your head at the same time, you stopped reading the requirements a while ago and started deciding. That is how this kind of role always goes — the right person recognizes it faster than anyone can pitch it.
The line in Greensburg needs one of you, starting now. If it's you, the contract is right here. If it's someone you came up with, send it their way — the person who owns the handshake is worth an introduction.
More open work and industry writing lives on the Automate America news and contracts hub.
Frequently asked questions
What's required versus what's a plus?
Required: Omron PLC programming in CX-One, with at least three years of Omron experience. Pluses: familiarity with Honda's electrical and programming standards, Yaskawa drives commissioning, and PILZ safety-PLC programming.
Where is it, and when does it start?
Greensburg, Indiana, on an automotive final-assembly line. It starts immediately and runs through the end of October.
What is the schedule?
Weekend work — 12-hour days, two days per week, with travel on Friday and Monday and the possibility of working some Mondays.
What does it pay, and are expenses covered?
$60.48 per hour, with travel time paid at the same rate. There is a $70/day per diem with no receipts required, a $130/day hotel allowance, and mileage reimbursement at $0.725 per mile.
How do I apply?
View and apply free on the contract page at Automate America. You can also be requested directly by companies searching the marketplace for an engineer with your controls, drives and safety background.
Tony Wallace, Co-Founder · Automate America · Text/Call 586-770-8083 · info@automateamerica.com
