Electrical Engineering Draftspersons and Technicians
Support and assist Engineering Professionals in the design, testing, analysis and assembly of electrical systems.
A commissioning day at the factory
You are an electrical engineering technician helping to switch on and test a new control system at a small factory. It is 9am. The factory owner is waiting to start production, the electricians want to leave by three, and your test sheet has forty items. Something already looks off.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
We have an order waiting. Can you just switch the line on now and do your testing while it runs? You can see the lights are on and the motors are turning. Surely that means it works.
Agree to run the line on low speed while you test around it, so the order is not held up
Moana is not delighted, but she can plan around a time. Your first round of tests finds a wrongly set safety device, which would have caused trouble once the line was running with people nearby.
Explain that testing comes first and give her a time it can start
It seems like a fair compromise, but testing on a running line puts your team and her staff too close to something unproven. Moana now expects the line to run while you work, which makes the next conversation harder.
Ask your engineer to talk to Moana, since the decision is above your level
Your engineer backs the plan and Moana accepts it. But the call takes twenty minutes, and you could have explained the reasons yourself. Understanding why you test is half the job.
That sensor reading you got is nowhere near what the drawing says. I reckon the meter is playing up. Just write down the number from the drawing and we can all go home.
Record the drawing number so the sheet is complete, as the meter is probably the problem
The sheet looks perfect and the report is wrong. If the real reading is a fault, the next person trusts a number that was never measured. A test record has to show what actually happened.
Check the meter against another instrument, then record the true reading
The meter is fine. The sensor was wired to the wrong input. Gavin fixes it, you re-test, and the record is true. Gavin admits it was easier than guessing.
Note the odd reading, say nothing to Gavin and ask your engineer later
The note is honest, but Gavin goes home thinking all is fine, and the fault waits until the engineer is free. A quick word on site would have saved an afternoon of back-and-forth.
How is it going? I need a yes or no for the owner. Is the control system ready to hand over today? I will rely on what you tell me, because I cannot be there.
Say it is nearly there and probably fine, so the owner is not alarmed over nothing
Dr Okafor tells the owner it is ready. The next morning, an untested alarm does not trigger. Vague reassurance goes a long way up the chain, and it is the technician who knows what has been checked.
Give her the full picture: passed, fixed, and untested, then let her decide
Dr Okafor asks two good questions and decides to hand over the working half today and the rest tomorrow. Giving the facts straight lets the engineer make the call properly.
Say no, it is not ready, and leave the explanation for your written report
Dr Okafor trusts you, but the owner calls her wanting reasons. She cannot answer without calling back. A clear no is good, and a clear no with the reason is better.
How it went
The line starts the next morning with every test signed off. Electrical technicians spend their days between paper and the real thing, checking that they match and saying so when they do not. How do you feel about work where the honest record matters more than the quick one?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The panel diagram that did not match the wall
A fictional case set in a fictional engineering firm that designs and tests electrical systems for factories and buildings.
The situation
Asha was an electrical engineering technician at Kestrel Controls, preparing the as-installed drawings for a new packaging line at a food factory. During a site visit she compared the switchboard against the diagram she had been given. Two circuits were labelled differently on the board than on the paper. The line was due to start production the following Monday, and the site manager did not want any delays.
What they did
Asha photographed the board and listed the differences. She did not rewrite the drawing to match the board, because she could not be sure which was right. She took the list to the engineer and asked the electrician who had wired it what had changed. It turned out that two circuits had been swapped on site to fit the cable runs, and nobody had updated the paper.
How it turned out
The drawing was corrected and signed off before the weekend. The factory started on Monday as planned. Asha suggested that electricians on site mark up changes in red on the plans during installation, and the firm tried it on their next job.
What would you do?
- Why might it be risky to just change the drawing to match the board?
- How would a wrong label cause trouble for an electrician a year from now?
- Do you like the idea of checking details against the real thing on site?