Author Archives: Scott Baker

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Ping Pong: More than just an activity at Avanceon

It may sound a bit unconventional, but ping pong is a great way to boost productivity at the office. It sharpens strategic thinking and skills, is a game that everyone can play and allows you to see a different side of your co-workers. We are fortunate to have a ping pong table in our office. During lunch breaks and late on Friday afternoons, you’ll often hear the sounds of ball hitting paddle and the murmur of quiet conversation among the spectators. Recently, as we were waiting our turn at the table, a colleague and I were discussing how much our skills had improved since we first started playing. It occurred to me that there’s a direct correlation between our behavior during our ping pong gatherings and Avanceon’s Core Fundamentals- the values that reflect what is truly important to us as an organization. Let me explain.
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A Fresh Perspective

I was recently watching a video on YouTube about an artist who would speed paint during the halftime of various NBA games. This painter stepped up to the canvas and, while music blared in the background, threw paint at the canvas with a variety of brushes and big strokes. While watching him frantically flail at his art, the viewer would look at the canvas and wonder “What is he doing? That doesn’t look like anything.” Finally, after a minute or two, he stepped back from his jumbled art, put down his brushes and admired the piece he worked so hard to complete quickly. It looked terrible! That was until he spun the painting upside down and revealed an amazing modern rendition of Albert Einstein’s portrait done perfectly in vibrant color. What struck me was the artist’s ability to look at something from a different perspective than the viewer, and create a successful outcome. I was recently reminded of this, when we were called out on a support / service call to fix…
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It’s 2am on Sunday Morning – Can You Troubleshoot your PLC Code?

Tips on writing supportable PLC code

 

I’m writing this blog article on behalf of the maintenance technicians and control engineers who get called in the middle of the night to figure out why the line won’t run. They didn’t write the code. They have had no need to study it closely. Now the line is down, people are standing around, the Plant Manager is getting impatient, and they need to figure out what’s wrong. Here are some tips on how we can help them out when we are creating the PLC code:
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Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Things have changed a lot since I started in this business. In the “old days”, you could use any color combination you wanted on your HMI screen, as long as it was amber on a black background. You could use timers and counters in your ladder logic, as long as they were structured exactly right, and outputs always went at the end of the rung. Always.
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