Overview

What should instrumentation and control system personnel know to do their jobs? What training is needed to work in the I&C field? What type of experience is needed? Should they have a mechanical, electronic, or computer background? What skills does the job require? These are questions that must be considered when pursuing a job in instrumentation, measurement, control, and manufacturing systems.

Training skilled support is key to best practices. One issue receiving a considerable amount of concern by production operation and maintenance managers is improving and maintaining the skill set needed by the support staff to maintain equipment and systems. Manufacturers have established training programs to keep their support staff current on emerging technologies. However, there is a growing concern that as the complexity of automation systems steadily increases, the availability of qualified technicians will diminish.

As maintenance staffs are trained to support more complex automation systems, their enhanced skill set becomes highly marketable, and they leave due to more marketable skills. Training support staff is essential as companies upgrade automation systems and equipment, but the very training that is required makes them vulnerable to staff attrition.

Companies recognize that the complexity of plant floor systems will increase due to emerging technologies and more sophisticated automation. There is concern that obtaining and retaining technicians with the necessary skill sets to support this new technology could become an issue.

Operations and maintenance managers are aware of the problem of retaining their in-house trained technicians, but there is currently no way...