Overview
The Automation Superintendent is responsible for maintaining the controls and automation equipment in support of the terminal operational and maintenance activities.
Working directly with operations and maintenance personnel at our North Vancouver export terminal to plan improvements, offer troubleshooting support to operators.
The Automation Superintendent has a deep understanding of the material handling equipment and processes, a passion for technology, and up-to-the-minute knowledge of automation trends; keeping the Managers and their teams informed of new ways to solve old problems. The position provides on-site advanced troubleshooting support to resolve issues that the maintenance team and operators are unable to resolve.
This is an on-site position. The terminal is a 24/7 operation and support calls may be required on the off shifts.
Specific Accountabilities
Strategic
- Participate in the development of the strategic plans and annual automation budgets
- Develop and maintain a 5-year control system strategy
- Find and research new technologies applicable to this industry
Operational
- Support multiple operations with PLC and HMI programming, troubleshooting and support
- Railcar unloading
- Vessel Loading
- Maintenance Activities
- Improvement projects, Capital and Expense
- Productivity improvements
- Operate in a safe manner in accordance with provincial, corporate, and divisional rules, regulations, and policies
- Be responsible for automation related equipment uptime statistics
- Recognize and eliminate all safety hazards
- Maintain a good working knowledge of bulk material handling equipment from an optimization, controls and mechanical point of view
- Lead engineering and design work to improve our export processes and further automate our processes:
- Enhanced operator interface systems
- Applied Artificial Intelligence to equipment monitoring
- Manage control system projects:
- Create project budgets · Develop and maintain project schedules · Create and present project status reports · Manage contractors during project execution · Manage vendor performance guarantees · Develop project handoff documentation
- Provide assistance, support and training to electrical personnel
- Support shipping terminal assets with high levels up uptime in 95-98% targets:
- 1 railcar dumper
- 30 bulk material handling conveyors
- 30 storage silos
- 1 rail mounted deep sea ship loader, remotely operated
- 8 electrical rooms
- 6 Allen Bradley PLC Controllers
- Exercise a flexible schedule in support of the 24-hour operations
- Provide vacation coverage for the Maintenance manager or maintenance superintendent
- Provide support for projects and annual shutdowns
- Recommend to the production department methods to improve safety, quality, throughput and uptime
Experience
- 5+ years of experience in equipment automation;
- Extensive experience with:
- Visualization systems (HMIs)
- Industrial programming: Control Logix 5000, ladder logic, function block, structured text
- Motion control: hydraulic, electric
- Motor control: Variable frequency drives, soft starters, smart overloads
- Industrial networking: Ethernet, DeviceNet
- Database support is an asset, sql, and historian.
Education & Certification
- Post-secondary degree/diploma in an engineering/technical discipline;
- Eligible for professional certification as an engineer or technologist.
Skills
- Good working knowledge of material handling processes;
- Good working knowledge of VMware virtualization software
- Understanding of SQL database interactions would also be considered an asset
