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Arc Flash Safety Engineering Studies – When do they make sense?
Having a solid electrical safety program is paramount to all industrial companies; first and foremost, to protect employees. It only takes one arc flash event to result in an electrical burn or worse – a fatality. Beyond safety concerns, protecting against an arc flash reduces the risk of damage to equipment, downtime and ensures you…
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Community Service at Huffman Engineering – A New Employee’s Perspective
Jeff Austin, Operations Manager I joined Huffman Engineering nearly 8 months ago. Following my 30-year Naval career, there were certain things I was looking for in my post-military “dream job.” One of the things that I had listed in my “top 5 must-haves” was my new job had to provide a valuable service to the…
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Control Engineering Philosophy
Blog post by Howard Huffman, PE Although PLCs and other control equipment have evolved over the years, the approach to developing high-quality control systems programs has not changed. During the design phase of a project the project engineers at Huffman Engineering Inc. need to consider the customer, the customer need and the abilities of the…
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Redundancy in Navigation for HMIs
Blog post by Mark Meelhuysen, Mechanical Engineer Most of us enjoy being able to click, type, and alt-tab our way around our computers without thinking twice. But what about Human Machine Interfaces that we use to control processes and track relevant information? It would sure be convenient to navigate HMIs with just as much ease…
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It’s not broken, why fix it?
Blog post by Keith Mandachit, Senior Engineer When I first started as a controls engineer, the year was 1996. Allen-Bradley’s flagship Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) then was the PLC-5. My colleagues and I have implemented many control systems utilizing the PLC-5 that are still alive and ticking today. One of the reasons it was loved…
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Testing & Training Room
By: Justin Gilg, Electrical Engineer Co-Op Student In order to meet customer needs and requirements Huffman Engineering, Inc. has its own in-house testing and training room. Within this room, there are various PLCs and electrical components which can be used to test programs and features. Also found in the testing/training room are a wide range…
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The Importance of Defining an Automation Project
By: Bernie Lyons, Shop Manager/ Senior Designer There are many components to a successfully completed automation project. One important step is determining exactly what the goal of the project is, and how success will be measured. Time spent up front defining the project should result in fewer unanticipated changes or additions during project implementation. Also…
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Hawaiian Shirt Friday
Blog Post by Wendy Huffman, CFO/Business Manager Chris was a larger than life engineer. His office walls had “Dogs Playing Poker” painted on velvet, as well as a severed-and-mounted toy stuffed animal moose’s head. Every year he would put an orange on his desk until it became mummified in some kind of protest against fruit. …
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Reduce Your Risk from Cyber Attacks
Computer hackers are coming for everyone and recently have breached industrial and utility’s computer system and encrypted their records. Hackers have gained access to computer systems when an employee clicked on a link in a phishing email that allowed malware to be installed on the employee’s computer. “One click” could take down your entire computer…
