Controls Engineer

Actalent - Wheeling, IL

Full-time - Mid Level

Wheeling, IL

10,001+ employees

Administrative and Support Services

About the position

The Controls Engineer will lead and provide technical expertise in controls and electronic circuitry within a medical device manufacturing plant. The role focuses on improving controls, troubleshooting high-volume automated assembly equipment, and training personnel in technical matters. The engineer will be responsible for ensuring safety, quality, and productivity targets are met through effective controls management and system optimization.

Responsibilities

• Lead or support maintenance teams in troubleshooting elusive problems resulting in downtime or quality issues.
• Develop and implement a plan to achieve highly effective controls troubleshooting and repair, minimizing downtime.
• Manage control of machine software, firmware, and user access security.
• Propose, evaluate risk, and implement PLC program and other software/firmware or hardware changes needed to improve safety, yield, and productivity.
• Interface with OEM engineers in identifying root cause and implementing improvements.
• Complete change control documentation, including change documentation, risk assessment, and justification.
• Optimize and/or improve human machine interfaces, SCADA systems, and MES interfaces.
• Troubleshoot and optimize performance of Cognex vision inspection systems.
• Define equipment maintenance/preventative maintenance requirements and procedures.
• Identify root causes of equipment failures, develop and implement corrective actions.
• Develop troubleshooting and repair skills of Controls and Automation Technicians.
• Provide expert on-call support for system outages and incidents.
• Develop User Requirement Specifications for new equipment or equipment updates.
• Work with Automation and Validation Engineers to develop test scripts to validate software/firmware updates.
• Support commissioning and validation of new equipment and/or implementation and testing of changes to existing equipment.

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent.
• 7+ years of experience in a high-volume industrial or manufacturing environment.
• Proficiency in programming and troubleshooting Allen Bradley Control Logics PLCs and Human Machine Interface (HMI / GUI).
• Proficient user of RSLOGIX5000, Logix Designer, Studio 5000, Factory Talk SE, Ignition, and Cognex.
• Demonstrated ability to design fault-tolerant systems with error handling and recovery.
• General understanding of factory LAN/WAN Ethernet networks and ability to set up devices with IP addresses or nodes.
• Experience setting up/tuning and troubleshooting variable frequency drives and Kinetix multi-axis servo drives.
• Solid working knowledge of bus networks (ProfiNet, DeviceNet, Ethernet/IP, Safety rated field bus networks).
• Radio frequency identification devices (RFID) and all accompanying components (Receiver, antenna, puck, reader).
• PID tuning and closed feedback loops.
• Serial communication (RS-232, RS-422, RS-485, ProfiBus, Modbus RTU, Data Highway) between PLCs, instruments, and microcontrollers.
• Ethernet communications between machine PLCs and embedded data collection systems.
• Proficiency in selecting appropriate circuit protectors, wire and cable, sensors, safety hardware, PLC hardware, remote I/O, VFD, and instrumentation.
• Broad knowledge of controls devices and experience troubleshooting.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.