From Old to Kool

Graduate Electrical Control Engineering Technology - Mohawk College , Hamilton, Ontario

PLC Specialist at GESCAN division of Guillevin International. GESCAN stands for General Electric Sales Canada which at the time was recently sold off.

First of many visits to GE in Charlottesville, VA

It was the hay days of PLC's participating in many inaugural installations at major Pipelines, Steel, Mining, Pulp and Paper and Hydro Electric customers in Canada predominantly in conjunction with GE Drives in Peterborough Ontario. The Series 6 PLC with Genius IO was a powerful solution still unparalleled today and our president John was the expert.

HMIs (Human Machine Interface) were in their infancy along with computer technology to run them on. Then along came Wonderware who changed everything and we were right there. Here is John. our President, in a gorgeous Chevy Geo convertible outside the Wonderware Laguna Beach offices to accept this award.

The 90s were the Series 90 PLC days as our president moves to GE, to rides the next wave of Automation establishing the GE name at Municipal water and OEM customers in Canada

This era sees our president developing his expertise as an Application engineer, traveling much of Canada and the Eastern US. A list of capability highlights are as follows -

• Upgraded a redundant PLC control system at a City water facility from old Genius IO to new Profinet IO on the fly without shutting down.
• Converted 500 rung Series 6 PID loop to a new Series 90 PID function block which controlled a very large ships main governor, while the ship was out of dock. When done we could control the engines and return.
• Developed a complete working 1mS SOE (Sequence of Event) logger to Quickpanel SD Card full application, still used today as part of the Emerson documentation for their 1mS SOE solution.
• Designed test stands, create test programs and supervised and reported results required to provide extended testing on PLC products for ESD, RF, Temperature, EMF in and Out, Harmonic susceptibility. This was all conducted at a state of the art test facility over 4 months.
• For HMI GE has Cimplicity. And iFix and Historian. John has expertise in all of these products and has conducted advanced Cimplicity training courses on several occasions.
• Convert and troubleshoot a 250,000 variable Rockwell to GE Ladder logic program.
• Designed and supervised demo stand builds and created and consolidated labs covering multiple days of materials used for multicity workshops.
• Created "black box" fault logger based on the Quickpanel Operator Interface.
• Pioneered support for Cloud solutions in 2015 based on GEs Predix Cloud. The first to learn and train the trainers on the new Cloud.
• Implemented DNP3 with SOE store and forward to iFix at a major municipal water facility.
• Solved network issues, unsolved for many months at a major food processing facility.
• Hands on experience with many industrial network protocols including SNP, SRTP, Modbus RTU, ModbusTCP, DNP3, IEC61850, OPC UA including encryption and security, Devicenet, Profinet, Profibus, CCM2, EGD, EthernetIP.
• Diagnosed old Genius LAN issues with an Oscilloscope and Ethernet diagnosis using Wireshark.
• Specialized in high speed 1mS control and logging techniques
• Specified and supervised implementing SIL3 (Safety Integrity Level 3) for both Process and Machine solutions using specialized safety controllers for controlled stops via process safety and immediate stop via discrete safety.
• Pioneered PLC with Servo Control solutions as part of the GE Fanuc JV. Implemented up to 22 coordinated Servo Motor axis using GE, now Emersons, PACMotion controllers and Fanuc Servo Motors.
• Implemented PLC / HMI based Process Control Solutions based on PACSystems PPS at a major Municipal Water Customer
• Created a PLC SNTP time synchronization block for use in PAC based controllers.
• HMI / SCADA is a particular area of expertise covering current and former brands under the following names
  • Emerson MoviconNext
  • Emerson PAC View on Windows or Quickpanel
  • GE Cimplicity
  • GE iFix
  • GE Historian
  • GE Plant Applications
  • Wonderware Intouch
  • CTC
  • US Data
  • Iconics Genesis32 
• Specified and supplied cutting edge customized and ruggedized Computers to many customers. We understand the needs for implementing 24 hour continuous computing solutions in any environment.
• Understand, consulted and implemented cybersecurity defensive techniques for Industrial computing and controls.
• Computing experience extends to low cost RaspberryPI computer solutions and Arduino Open PLC solutions.
• Hardware design solutions encompassing repurposing vintage products to add a level of flair and function unattainable using current products.
• Alternative and "zero net" power solutions are a particular goal. Shown throughout are some of the audio speaker solutions already created using this principal.  

The end of an era as GE sold their Automation division to Emerson Electric who represent and grow these products going forward.  John returned to sales role helped to integrate the GE Automation business into Emerson. 

Kool Automated Solutions Inc is open for business. See our skunkworks lab for what we are up to or better yet, get us working for you. Give us a call anytime.