Despite their obvious, physical differences, many process industries and applications share common objectives, such as striving for efficiency and safety. Digitalization has expanded and deepened these commonalities, of course, so even the new engineers and operators sought by manufacturers must also share many of the same skills.

“We work with process, discrete and machine-building applications, and they share more similarities than differences. So, when we’re looking to hire, we try to find self-motivated, self-starters, who are curious, and can also see what additional knowledge and training they’ll likely need when presented with opportunities,” says Daniel Clark, architecture and engineering director at Abelara, a year-and-a-half-old coaching, consulting and system integration firm in the Cleveland area. “My degree is in accounting, so I know it takes people with different skills. That’s why we start by seeking analytical minds that can solve problems.”

Dylan DuFresne, cofounder of Abelara, reports potentially worthwhile engineering and operations candidates aren’t necessarily required to have any particular technical education, so long as they have active minds and a desire to analyze problems.

“One of the last guys I hired at my previous systems integration company had most recently been a store manager, but he could immediately see how we were programming a start button, and how its sensors and HMI were supposed to work within the larger system,” explains DuFresne. “He obviously made mistakes, but after about 50-60 minutes, he said, ‘Oh, I can see why you’re doing this,’ and he’d never programmed a PLC before.”

Persistence paves the way

Even though their backgrounds may vary widely, DuFresne adds that successful engineering candidates must also have a combination of curiosity in how they think combined with stubbornness in how they react to circumstances and setbacks, including a willingness to be uncomfortable.

“When a problem happens, do you freeze and run away from it, or do you run towards it and try to figure it out? Some of this persistence and logical, systems thinking can be taught, but it’s easier if it’s innate,” says DuFresne. “What experienced engineers can teach rookies is how to handle processes going badly. If they see veterans responding calmly during unplanned, chaotic or even dangerous situations, they’ll learn how to react calmly, too.”

Similarly, DuFresne reports his three most successful engineering hires at his two prior jobs included a law school dropout, a power systems and circuit-breaker testing technician, and a tire salesman.

“Within a year of being hired, the technician learned Ladder Logic principles and was a top performer; the tire sales guy was a solid controls programmer; and the former law school student was performing better than most of our veteran controls engineers,” says DuFresne. “None of these three even knew what a PLC was before they were hired, but they plugged into teams, did control side tasks and PLC programming, trained on other small projects that grew progressively larger, and achieved small wins that also got larger. Within that first year, each was working on large, batch-processing projects, which included integrating valves, pumps, alarms, logic gates, conveyors and scales.”

Teach the teachers

While it will likely take more time and patience, Clark agrees that curiosity can be sparked and nurtured from scratch. He recommends that mentors can save up relatively simple tasks for new team members, such as writing simple software code for a pushbutton-type function, and then let them put it into production, so they can directly experience its effects.

“Seeing something work that you’ve created inspires curiosity because individuals who didn’t think they could program get excited when they can, and then they want to do more,” explains Clark. “This is something we can build on for the next activity. This process builds momentum and fuels desire because participants want that next win. It’s like bowling with bumpers—you’re guaranteed to knock down at least a few pins, but once it happens, you want to knock down more.”

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While bad managers will arbitrarily give new staffers nothing but menial tasks, usually with no thought about their development, Clark reports that good managers will give them similarly basic jobs, but do it with an eye towards helping them learn and grow.

“A bad manager yells at you, but a good manager walks you through the steps to reach a good resolution,” says Clark. “Good managers also teach their staffs, who will teach their co-op employees, who will teach the summer interns, who will go back to school and get their classmates excited about maybe becoming future interns. It’s the good experience starting at the top that drives this whole process.”

Perhaps the best part of consciously and thoroughly recruiting and training new hires is they quickly gain the know-how in abilities to train the next person, according to DuFresne.

“When a problem gets solved or even a small project succeeds, participants may say, ‘This is why I do it.’ Well, for some of us, training the next person is the reason we do it,” adds DuFresne. “We like watching that spark come back on and helping others get it. For instance, humans have gone through inventing and learning to use waterwheels, steam, electricity, pneumatics, relays, semiconductors, PLCs, databases, Internet and now AI. Tomorrow it will be something else, but the skills needed to learn, understand, apply them and convey them to others will be the same.”

AI is A-OK, but don’t be foolish

Just like everyone else, Abelara’s DuFresne confirms that digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) are popping up everywhere. However, he cautions AI isn’t a cure-all, and stresses that mindset, skills, attitude, generosity and personality are still what makes good engineers. “These first principles are the same as always, and they won’t change, even if the tools around them are different,” he says.

Clark agrees it’s important to remember that AI is just a tool, much like a handheld calculator, so it can likewise help rookies or veterans working in new areas, if they’re trained to use it properly. “It’s an easier way to do things, but users still need to know the basic engineering concepts and principles to extend their applications and operations, and make them go faster and further,” says Clark. “Instead of spending a day writing boilerplate code, AI can generate a large portion of it in minutes, leaving engineers with more time to solve actual problems.”

For example, it used to take Clark days to dive into a system to understand its application and database structure, including table structures, foreign key relationships, triggers and other essential components, before building visualizations and isolating changes he wanted to make. Now, he can provide those requirements to an AI prompt, and generate diagrams, database structures and visualization in hours instead of days.

“I can do 10 revisions, and that cycle will take hours instead of days. This is now standard procedure,” says Clark. “Likewise, for the table structure, I just define the things it can be, indicate what I want, and it’s returned to me.”

Beyond its speed, and the boost it can give to new recruits and other less-experienced users, AI’s other advantage is that it gets better with practice, according to Clark.

“As I continue providing context and examples, AI becomes much better at producing results that match my style and what I'm trying to accomplish,” explains Clark. “I can tell ChatGPT what I need visually on a whiteboard, add pictures and explain further, and it will provide a demo envisioning what I’m seeking, such as a database or table structure. I can use these results to explain a project, situation or other details to my coworkers or clients. Meeting people where they’re at in their journey, and helping them become more self-sufficient, are huge parts of any system integrator’s job, and AI can help us do them.”