Dallas — Industrial Automation & Controls Engineer

Experience with PLC-5 through to all the current L8 lineup. PLC programming and commisioning new installations. Retrofit, troubleshooting, debugging, and tunning. I have experience in the wood processing, automotive, manufaturing, and material handeling industires.

At tesla I was in a group of people that were responsible for supporting the launch and maintaing of the Model X, and Model3 production lines in the Body in White department. We set up a lot of differnt robots with a wide range of end of arm tooling setups including, vision, welding, glue application and others.

This is exactly what I have spent the past 6 years doing. Traveling to customers worldwide, living out of hotels, and working long day and weeks. It takes an above average individual to perform this type of work day in and day out. You have to balance a lot of differnt variables to successfully complete any project. There will always be unforseen hurdles that come up, cause schedule delays, or create some problem you have to address. I also have a good understanding of all other related disceplines to my projects as you will need to work together with any necessary contractors like electricians, millwrights, etc.

I personally enjoy this part of the process. In my experience we usually get whatever it is to the point where it can run safely and is mostly functional but still has problems. Depending on the problem at hand I like to set up a few diagnostic rungs in the code to see where it is were falling short and adjust things from there.

I have experience with various applications involving field installation. A customer who wants to add some type of sensor or device into a running system to address a particular concern. Determine how and where to route any neccessary power and communication cables. Program and assign any necessary address to the newly installed devices and incorporate into PLC code.

I have spent more than the past 5 years traveling the world and commisioning large automated systems from start to finish. Preparing the code for delivery, traveling to site for startup. Verifying all IO, network, and filed devices. Set up VFD parameters and scaling. Tune hydralic servo axis and motors.

Process improvement is never ending and always evolving. I devote so much of my overall accumulated time trying to fix something or improve something. I find now process improvement is sort of a lens I just filter everything through including my personal life. This is not to be mistaken for laziness or cutting corners, the idea is to remove all unnecessary ingredients from the process while maintaining or even raising the bar for quality.

Over the years I have spent a lot of time doing different types of root cause analysis. In many cases this might look like building out some helpful trends using specific data points to track a problem. We could have a situation where we receive some type of alarm for a position warning and set up a trend to see our command position relative to our actual positon and just continue narrowing it down until you get to the specific problem.

Most of my experience with wiring diagrams is during the initial start of a new project. It may be for hardware selection, IO addressing, or troubleshooting. Typically on large machine installations you will encounter problems with various devices in the field and at some point you will be reaching for the drawings to verify they match reality and troubleshoot electrical problems. I am very familiar with using wiring diagrams both US and EU standard format.

This is one of those things I do on a regular basis but personally the best example of where this was a focus was during my time with Amazon. Essentially, we would review the overall performance of the facility and determine our biggest bottlenecks and areas with room for improvement. From there and depending on the problem we would strategize and provide different options to find a solution. This could be as simple as reviewing and modifying the code. Adding an additional sensor to detect a jam before indexing the next product, etc.

Majority of my my motion experience is with hydraulic servo valves controlled by a Delta RMC motion controller. I have also done many systems using rockwell motion cards. I am confident in my ability to get a motion axis under control safely and relativley quickly. I have also spent a lot of time trobleshooting various problems related to motion axis. Using the wiring diagrams I will verify its wired correctly if it is, use a multimeter to verify we have the appropriate voltage where we need it.

This is a very common part of any large commissioning project, especially if it's also a whole new business with new employees. Typically for me this looks something like we have fulfilled our performance promise to the customer, everything is good to go and has been worked out. Now it's time for production and operator training. It does not matter the machine or industry things will come up and the operators need to know how to handle different situations accordingly. Additionally they will need to be taught how to navigate the HMI, interpret the alarms, and safely stop and start the process to name a few.

The majority of my servo experience is with hydralic axis on servo valves (typically Bosh valves), controlled my a motion controller (typically an RMC motion controller or Rockwell M02 motion cards).

Using and refrencing technical documentation is something I do on a daly basis. It could be disecting a manufacturers part number to determine certain information you may need to find a replacement or just better understand the specifactions of something and the best way to use it for a particular application.

The majority of my experince with VFD's is with the Allen Bradley Powerflex 755 line. Most large machine centers we do can have anywhere from 10 to over 50 motors ranging in size and application. I have experience going through the commisioning and auto tuning process to get drives stable and ready to take commands from the PLC or HMI.

My experience with vision is very solid. Primarily I have worked with Cognex, IFM, and Basler vision systems. Most recently it has been related to the sawmill indusy where we use vision to capture the position and size of the log to be processed. Based on that information we pass to the PLC so we can adjust the position of our saws, increase or decrease our feed speed and so on. At Tesla I did have some experience with the Zeiss vision system used to measure and assure quality and accuracy of the body.

I have done a lot of different wiring jobs over the years. Very competent using a mulitimeter to troubleshoot electrical issues. Anything from 24vDC IO devices to 3 phase 480v motors and drives. Pulling new wire, cutting, stripping, and landing wires are all task I do regularly. I am also profecient in making up network and encoder cables using the appropriate indusy standards and techniques.

Designed, programmed, commissioned, and retained PLC-based automation and industrial control systems to enhance efficiency in sawmilling and wood processing. Played a vital role in integrating advanced control systems with existing machinery. Delivered comprehensive remote and on-site technical support to domestic and international clients. Key Accomplishments Minimized downtime and ensured operational readiness by diagnosing and resolving system issues through remote and on-site technical support. Empowered operator and maintenance teams to adjust setpoints, run trends, and disable alarms by integrating standardized IO-Link device AOIs and code into HMIs. Created reusable AOI code blocks to accelerate programming across projects, significantly reduce development time, and improve overall efficiency.

Controls Systems Lead Enhanced team capability by training and developing CSTs on control systems concepts and procedures. Developed and updated documentation for control systems, network layouts, and system configurations. Facilitated issue resolution and project planning by conveying technical updates to team members and leadership. Key Accomplishments Improved equipment reliability by maintaining, troubleshooting, and modifying PLC code for building MHE systems. Enhanced performance metrics by supporting FC equipment through proactive operational maintenance and optimization.

Lead Equipment Technician Trained and led a high-performing team of equipment technicians in maintaining, troubleshooting, and repairing automated manufacturing systems. Maintained compliance with the company's safety, quality, and documentation standards during all maintenance activities. Increased throughput and efficiency by debugging control systems. Key Accomplishments Boosted production by ramping manufacturing lines with PLC systems, industrial robots, motion control, and vision systems. Reduced downtime by responding to alarms, equipment breakdowns, and urgent production support requests.

Held full accountability for performing inspections, diagnostics, maintenance, and repairs on various equipment. Examined and recorded findings to deliver corrective suggestions to the customer. Key Accomplishments Resolved equipment issues by performing on-site electrical/mechanical troubleshooting and commissioning VFDs and motors.