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Why Use a Checklist for Electrical Startup of Equipment?

POSTED 04/29/2020

| By: Mark Teed, Controls Program Manager at Applied Manufacturing Technologies

Have you ever wondered what it takes to safely start up automated machinery? AMT’s highly-trained automation engineers have developed a proprietary Electrical Startup Checklist for the on-site startup of manufacturing equipment to mitigate risk and quickly achieve operational goals.

The initial startup of automated equipment can be fraught with hazards, from potential personnel injury to the risk of machinery collisions during testing. Many types of skills are needed during the startup of a machine.

Checklist author and Controls Program Manager Mark Teed elaborated, “The people who start up machines need to wear many hats. They need to be good at customer relations, be an electrician, understand how the machine is supposed to work, and be able to identify mechanical issues.”

At some companies, starting up the machine may be done by a programmer, electrician, mechanical engineer or a project manager. “This checklist helps someone who doesn’t wear all those hats to get through the startup process. It’s critical to follow proper procedure; you can easily wipe out a couple hundred thousand dollars of equipment when starting up if you aren’t paying attention. For me, starting up the machine is always the most exciting part of the project.”

Beginning with requesting permission to power up the machine, the Electrical Startup Checklist walks the user step-by-step through the process of powering up the machine, testing the manual mode, testing the automatic mode, and finishes with acceptance testing and final sign off.

AMT’s Electrical Startup Checklist covers:

Appropriate permissions and personnel
Checking input devices
Downloading programs to the PLC and HMI
Checking network devices and sensors
Avoiding equipment crash potentials in manual mode
Adding motions for testing in automatic mode
Dry cycling the machine
Starting to run parts
Running in automatic mode
Checking for faults
Acceptance tests and final sign off

Download the Electrical Startup Checklist and follow the included guidelines to efficiently bring your equipment online and mitigate risk while doing so.

Download the checklist.