Graduate Life – By Zama Lugayeni
I arrived at TES in July 2016 about 2 weeks after my graduation from Queens University, Belfast. I was born in South Africa and migrated to the UK 17 years ago. I have always had a huge interest in Engineering and I mean all aspects of Engineering. I have an HND in Electrical and electronic Engineering and also hold a 2:1 Bachelor’s degree in Software and Electronic Systems Engineering. I decided to join TES as it is a great company to work for and will help my career progression as I get to work alongside world class engineers very willing to share their wisdom.
I applied directly to join the PLC team which was one of my great interests as automation is a field that has been there for decades and keeps going from strength by strength. I can happily add that the PLC team in TES is badass!!! The guys are brilliant to work with and our team gets on so well together.
My personal interests still include some aspects of my career, but to get away from everything work related I practice anti-gravity and Ashtanga yoga twice a week. I also attend meetup sessions in Belfast to keep up to date with all the technology and especially with Belfast becoming a hub for cyber security its amazing to meet people in this field and learn all the new techniques that are used in industry.
For the first few weeks I worked with several SSE’s that had been with the company from 1 – 5 years. I helped with contract co-ordination of the PLC contract and produced a functional design specification (FDS) for a backwash operation and I also created a human machine interface (HMI) screens for this project. The best parts of the first few weeks was learning what the company truly did, going into the workshop and seeing design drawings brought to life, the whole process of getting a project, writing up the FDS getting it approved and then starting on programming the PLC and HMI is still one of the challenging parts of the job as you need to capture what the client wants and even throw in your own suggestions to help the project be sustainable.
At this very moment, I feel that I have competency in several PLCs: Allen Bradley using RS Logix 5000, Mitsubishi using GX IEC Developer and Siemens using TIA portal. TES has provided me with training for Siemens Level 1 training for TIA Portal, Siemens Simocode, ABB VSD drives and many more. I am also fully trained for all the health safety aspects especially as I attend sites from time to time.
My day to day duties vary each and every day. I could be working on producing PLC software/ Technical writing / out on site / testing a switchgear or MCC panel in the workshop the list goes on. There is never a day the same and my line manager Martin Devlin ensures that each and every day is a school day.
I also do the purchase orders for the PLC team using the Sage 200 software and recently I have started pricing jobs that need PLC hardware and software.
TES is growing every single day, since I joined the company in July 2016 we have hired 5 graduates. It is an amazing company to work for and I hope my career will grow with more programming and hands on experience when it comes to commissioning projects and project management.
