Controls Engineering Technician

Controls Engineering Technician

Founded over 35 years ago, First Quality is a family-owned company that has grown from a small business in McElhattan, Pennsylvania into a group of companies, employing over 5,000 team members, while maintaining our family values and entrepreneurial spirit. With corporate offices in New York and Pennsylvania and 8 manufacturing campuses across the U.S. and Canada, the companies within the First Quality group produce high-quality personal care and household products for large retailers and healthcare organizations. Our personal care and household product portfolio includes baby diapers, wipes, feminine pads, paper towels, bath tissue, adult incontinence products, laundry detergents, fabric finishers, and dishwash solutions. In addition, we manufacture certain raw materials and components used in the manufacturing of these products, including flexible print and packaging solutions.

Guided by our values of humility, unity, and integrity, we leverage advanced technology and innovation to drive growth and create new opportunities. At First Quality, you'll find a collaborative environment focused on continuous learning, professional development, and our mission to Make Things Better®.

We are seeking a Controls Engineering Technician for our First Quality Baby Products location in Macon, GA. This position is responsible for troubleshooting and maintaining controls components and systems for production and associated utility equipment to insure highest reliability, proper line performance, and safe operation. Using advanced training, skills, and experience, this role provides training for other Controls Technicians, coordinates electrical PM programs, and makes complex changes in PLC, HMI, Servo Drive Programming, and AC and DC Drives.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Observes all OSHA and company safety rules and uses the proper safety equipment at all times. Notifies Supervisor of potentially dangerous electrical hazards and takes immediate corrective action. Demonstrates basic National Electrical Code understanding. Follows Lock-Out/Tag-Out procedures.
• Troubleshoots machine breakdowns and malfunctions utilizing a working knowledge of programs and tools required to troubleshoot PLC's, DCS's, HMI's and servo systems including electrical schematics, meters, oscilloscopes, etc.
• Trains and assists technicians to troubleshoot, repair, replace and calibrate all electrical sensing devices including: photoelectric, inductive, capacitive, magnetic, pressure, temperature, weight and position sensors, flow, and analytical instruments.
• Trains and assists technicians to troubleshoot, repair, replace and commission a) all electrical control devices including: AC drives, DC drives, Servo Controllers, contactors, motors, breakers, solenoids power supplies and indicator lights, and b) all DCS/PLC/HMI hardware including: processors, discrete and analog I/O cards, power supplies, network adapters, distributed I/O, operator interfaces such as Panelview, PC based interfaces, and message displays such as Rsview.
• Based on extensive experience of the machine processes and controls systems, makes critical decisions to proactively avoid downtime, quality, scrap, and safety problems.
• Makes complex program modifications in PLC's logic, HMI's programs and servo controller logic to improve equipment performance. Also works with the Controls Engineers to implement changes on DCS systems. This may also require significant changes to the control equipment and wiring on the machines.
• Coordinates the electrical preventative maintenance program by identifying items that need regular inspection and replacement, scheduling the tasks and task frequencies required, and following up to ensure the completion and effectiveness of each task.
• Manages all PLC, Servo and HMI programs and changes as well as electrical documentation. Ensures that they are all accurate, updated, available to the technicians and archived at regular intervals. Works with Controls Engineers to do the same on DCS systems.
• Assists Production, Maintenance, and Process & Project Engineers to meet daily priorities, coverage, and special projects.
• Provides extensive support during machine installations and upgrades including: interfacing auxiliary equipment, identifying and correcting errors in programming and wiring and ensuring vendors and contractors are meeting our needs and expectations. Support to include off-campus remote locations through both remote access and travel to other locations.

The ideal candidate should possess the following:

• Associates Degree in electronics, computer science or related field plus 5 years industrial electrical experience. Or, a Bachelors degree in electronics or computer science with at least 3 years industrial experience.
• Personal Computer skills including specific controls programming software and basic e-mail, word processing, and spreadsheet applications.
• Has excellent analytical skills, including Identifying machine problems and potential causes, devising and performing tests to identify the root cause of problems, analyzing data from multiple sources to identify trends and anomalies, identifying possible causes of future downtime and taking preventative steps, and using strong mathematical skills with numeric analysis software.
• Has excellent communication skills, including Providing effective training to other Controls Technicians, communicating procedures for preventive maintenance, communicating with production staff to identify machine problems and possible causes, and communicating with OEM's to resolve machine problems.
• Has advanced knowledge of electrical theory and principles of operation, including solid knowledge of three phase, single phase and DC power, application of NEC and standard wiring practices, utilizing meters and oscilloscopes to identify electrical problems, and reading and creating electrical schematics where needed.
• Advanced knowledge of all PLC (and DCS if required) based hardware and software, including excellent PLC programming skills, assisting in DCS changes, good servo and HMI programming skills, interface between multiple controllers over various networking platforms.
• Ability to make quick and accurate electrical repairs and program changes.
• Standard knowledge of product specifications, quality requirements, production goals, efficiency and waste.
• Knowledge of products specifications and the processes that affect them.
• Understands impact of downtime and waste on production efficiency.
• Ability to work well in a team environment. Provides leadership to resolve problems within own workgroups.

What We Offer You

We believe that by continuously improving the quality of our benefits, we can help to raise the quality of life for our team members and their families. At First Quality you will receive:

• Competitive base salary and bonus opportunities
• Paid time off (three-week minimum)
• Medical, dental and vision starting day one
• 401(k) with employer match
• Paid parental leave
• Child and family care assistance (dependent care FSA with employer match up to $2500)
• Bundle of joy benefit (year's worth of free diapers to all team members with a new baby)
• Tuition assistance
• Wellness program with savings of up to $4,000 per year on insurance premiums
• ...and more!

First Quality is committed to protecting information under the care of First Quality Enterprises commensurate with leading industry standards and applicable regulations. As such, First Quality provides at least annual training regarding data privacy and security to employees who, as a result of their role specifications, may come in to contact with sensitive data.

First Quality is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification, or protected Veteran status.

For immediate consideration, please go to the Careers section at www.firstquality.com to complete our online application.