While retirements and resulting brain drains are hitting all the process industries, users and companies respond with different strategies from training replacements more thoroughly to archiving veteran expertise and know-how.

“We democratize our captured knowledge with a learning management system (LMS) that can add as many authors as we want. We already have 50 authors in our LMS providing a wide variety of perspectives,” says Donna Copeland, training and development manager at Eosys (https://www.eosysgroup.com), a system integrator in Smyrna, Tenn., near Nashville, and a certified member of the Control System Integrators Association (https://www.controlsys.org). “Knowledge is shared across all levels of the organization, including our sharp, young staffers.”

Beyond gathering know-how, Eosys believes the other key to workforce development is a strong mentorship program with senior employees working with their junior counterparts.

“We have an intentional culture, which means we develop the skills we need in-house with labs and simulation that support our on-the-job-training (OJT),” explains Copeland. “We recently built several in-house labs for hands-on training, programming and troubleshooting,” adds Copeland. “The labs instruct participants about continuous process automation in central laboratory pathways, servos and motion technologies that are different than motors, and machine safety, proportional integral derivative (PID) tuning, elevator, simulations and other topics.” (Figure 1)

Tuning labs distribute skills

Brandon Anderson, marketing manager and former senior controls engineer at Eosys, reports that tasks like PID tuning get easier with practice because users can take note of odd situations, remember the most suitable ways to respond, and gradually build a PID loop-tuning body of knowledge.

“We even built an in-house PID loop tuner that’s a ping-pong ball in a tube with an adjustable=speed fan blowing air through, laser level measurement, and an HMI showing the ball’s location and the fan’s speed, so PID gains can be adjusted. This lets mentors show younger personnel what happens when gains or the level setpoint are changed,” says Anderson. “We included all the applicable tuning parameters, which lets users do testing. We also put these instructions in our LMS, and now we have a ping-pong ball PID tuning lab at each of the five Eosys  offices in Nashville, Huntsville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Cincinnati.”

Copeland reports that Eosys’ LMS has a curriculum for new employees, which orients them to its business, and also includes training in career-specific technical skills, communications, workforce development, structured query language (SQL), soft skills, digital transformation, and other topics.

“We don’t hire people off the street. However, if they have soft skills, intelligence and curiosity, and if they’re tenacious, adaptable and teachable, then they can learn pretty much anything we do,” explains Chase Davis, technology director at Eosys.

Davis adds that digitalization can help develop personnel because it can emulate controllers and simulate PLCs, so they can learn to apply hardware to processes without having to visit as many of those components in person. Likewise, despite all the recent hype, he adds that artificial intelligence (AI) can also make software development more efficient, including streamlining code generation and subsequent reviews.

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“There will soon be some kind of AI copilot in every control vendor’s products. However, even if AI-based tools are available, users will still need to know their own ecosystems, and be educated and trained enough to maintain them,” says Davis. “There’s no substitute for being present at processes and plants to install devices and troubleshoot them. More staffers than ever can work remotely or at home these days, but we’re still seeking people who want to work hands-on, and witness the work they’re doing.”

Inspire ‘em while they’re young

Similar to other system, integrators, Eosys gets a jump on recruiting by cultivating potential candidates while they’re still in school via its Next Engineering cooperative education program, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary. This nine-12 month program draws students from more than 10 schools, including Tennessee Tech, University of Alabama, University of Toledo, Kennesaw State University and the University of Minnesota.

“Our Next Engineers appreciate being treated as regular engineers, encounter lots of mentors, get boots-on-the-ground experience, and see actual project phases,” says Anderson, who is a Next Alumni himself. “We also try to get them into panel shops, where they can see panel building in person, which is a lot different than just looking at drawings. However, even though they’re treated like regular engineers, they don’t visit clients by themselves.”

Copeland reports that Next Engineering hasn’t changed much over the years, remains very hands-on, and continues to be a beneficial partnership for the company, the schools and their students. The program averages 10-15 Next Engineers per academic session, or about 25 total during a typical year.

“We get the feeling our Next Engineering program is still right for them and us,” says Copeland. “Ten or 20 years ago, there was no LMS and less e-learning, but now we have a formal curriculum and do better tracking. This makes the program more well-rounded, gives us more opportunities to connect our Next Engineers with each other, and lets them build more connections with their peers.”

In fact, during a recent presentation, Next engineer and Kennesaw State student Aubryn Thomas, stated, “I feel like I’ve learned more about engineering and the industrial automation world in the past few months than I did in my three years in school.”

Copeland adds that Eosys eventually hires many of its Next Engineers as full-time employees. In fact, Anderson adds about 25% of the company’s 225 total employees including executive leadership are Next alumni. While the program mainly consists of engineering co-ops, Eosys has a similar manufacturing program, which brings in personnel for summer jobs, and has its own skills-training and learning path.

“The brain drain can be countered with proactive knowledge capture and talent development,” concludes Copeland. “This makes them critical for system integrators to meet present and future needs with exceptional results.”