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electgut21:
I have had contact with plant people of various trades in auto or supplier firms. These plants were generally several hundred thousand to several million square feet. The sizes were large enough that there were many electricians and in the larger plants the trades might be grouped for certain areas of the plant.
In general there were two types of electricians. Bulb changers and real technicians. Which type you were depended upon your goals.
In an assembly plant, for example axle where most of my contacts were, there are a lot of PLCs, some CNCs, and lots of communication. If you want to play cards all day and change bulbs and fuses you may find a few facilities that by chance want you. If you have a real interest in logic, troubleshooting, and the capability to do these jobs, then you may be in great demand.
The type of plant unionized or non may make a big difference in what you can do.
I will illustrate a union plant where the union was tolerant of the members working together. In this plant there was a young electrician that was usually assigned to me when I was at the plant. He also had a buddy that was the machine repairman in the particular assembly area where I had equipment. Our equipment was mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and electrical in content.
Much of the time when new machines come into the plant they are not fully debugged. I need to point out that meeting deadlines is very important. Many machines in an assembly area, such as an axle plant, are one of a kind or only a few, and tend to evolve from one application to the next. This is why machines are not likely to be fully debugged by the time they are needed in the assembly plant.
Back to my young electrician. He was interested in knowing how things work, how to troubleshoot, and solve problems. Over the years as I worked with him on different problems and machines he developed his PLC and troubleshoot capabilities greatly. If we had a machine problem, possibly mechanical or electrical or both, he and his buddy would come to the job and both would contribute with each other's work. If a preload prerundown air motor had to be changed both worked on it. If the electric drive motor and clutch system had a problem both worked on it. To change the electric clutches or nut torque shaft it was electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, and air. This was a 4 to 16 hour job of several trades depending upon the problem.
This electrician usually got the jobs to troubleshoot machines, whether mechanical or electrical, and seldom was on installation jobs. From his interest and experience he has move to other jobs, head of maintenance at a somewhat smaller plant of the same manufacture, and now to a corporate process engineer, and troubleshooting at worldwide plants.
Pick the appropriate company and plant and have fun.
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