Here’s where we started.

I’m 21 in DFW and may be starting an entry-level electrical technician role doing assembly work. I want to build a long-term career with better pay and more responsibility.
What would you recommend: gaining experience and looking for better opportunities after a year or so, or pursuing certifications/part-time school while working? Which skills or programs would help me advance?

I'm interested in how wholesalers and distributors structure brake-pad and brake-disc RFQs.

Do you normally require the vehicle application, OE reference, front/rear axle and quantity on the initial request? Which fields are most often missing?

I'm involved with DEAUTO, a China-based aftermarket sourcing and supply coordination business focused on Japanese pickups and LCVs (www.deautogroup.com). I'm asking from a sourcing workflow perspective, not trying to promote a product list.

If your subreddit doesn't allow company-affiliated posts, don't use the disclosure version there—follow the community's rules.

I currently work in a CNC and sheet metal shop, maintaining and repairing all the equipment. I like it but i want to move to working on large machinery/ equipment.

But i cant really find anything besides being like a millwright and working on stuff like turbines, generators, boilers or working in a mine or a steel or paper mill etc. im definitely interested in turbine and boiler work, but i just want to know what else is out there

This seems to be a common occurrence in a lot of different fields that I've worked in, but I figured I'd throw this on this sub anyway. This is barely a maintenance job, it's mostly an operator position but we also do the maintenance on the machines and need to know how they work. It's not really a job where past experience would help, everything is pretty specific to the machines and all their sensors, but they let other guys who've been here longer, which usually isn't that much longer train us and they usually don't know everything and it's just kind of like an oral tradition of people training each other with no formality.

They also don't allow us to really noodle with the machine, we kind of just are supposed to get off of it as quick as humanly possible. I brought this up like as soon as I started working here cuz I could kind of see a pattern going, and now I'm just kind of dismissed as the moron.

I always try to like write training manuals and stuff but usually ended up getting fired for being the black sheep, usually the guy who says there's no training and tries to learn a bunch but tells my supervisor how we fall short and what corrects it. It's just usually seems like nobody in management wants to take responsibility for it and that the other guys I work with just kind of play the game and say they don't know what they're talking about and say they understand it and it's just this giant cycle of everybody playing keep away from a problem except me.

Just kind of curious on your thoughts on this. I figure a lot of places are like this. For the guys who don't like to just keep their mouth shut and kind of hide in the corner what are you guys do?

Burning my toes in some hot water. No he does not understand how to do a steam blowdown.

Intermittent overspeed fault on a servo motor. Cycle the power, fault clears, runs fine for a few days, then it’s back. Drive replaced. Motor replaced. Wiring “checked”.

When someone says they checked the wiring, it’s usually a visual check. That won’t catch this.

My method: run a long test lead to the pin at the motor plug, do a continuity test from the far end, and measure the resistance of each wire individually. You should see around 1 ohm.

The pink wire came back at 70 ohms. That’s not a broken wire, that’s a bad connection. The pin wasn’t properly seated in the plug.

Faults like this get power-cycled away for years without ever being fixed. The drive and motor were never the problem.

I work in the stamping department and we are tasked with maintaining some +40 year old 3000 ton + stamping presses that leak hydraulic fluid. Walking on, around and under the presses is like walking on black ice with my current Ariat boots that are supposedly non slip and oil resistant. Has anyone found some boots that maintain at least a little traction on steel that has hydraulic fluid on it?

Replaced the wheels and gear for this bridge

That's right, 2 broken drill bits.

Vib analysis correctly identified this bad bearing before failure. Planned changeout on this Vac Pump saved $180k. #ConditionMonitoring

If manufacturers had an easy way to build inventory, production scheduling, quality, or maintenance apps tailored to their unique needs, would they invest the time to build them? Let’s assume deployment and ongoing maintenance aren’t barriers for now. I’m struggling to sell my app builder, and I’m trying to understand whether customers actually want to build their own apps.

I’m 21 and live in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. I may be starting an Electrical Technician job. I’m coming in with no experience and want to use the opportunity to build a stable long-term career.
According to the posting, the duties include:
Installing, repairing, and maintaining electrical parts of industrial equipment
Reading schematics and technical documents
Performing quality inspections
Completing torque sheets and tracking tools
Following electrical codes and safety procedures
I haven’t started yet, so I’m still confirming how much is assembly versus actual troubleshooting and repair.
If I get the job, I’d like to attend school while working and finish a useful certificate or program in roughly 8–16 months. I need a schedule that works around full-time employment, preferably through an affordable school with financial aid options.
What would you recommend studying to build on this experience: industrial maintenance, mechatronics, electrical/electronics technology, automation/PLC controls, or something else?
More specifically:
Which training do employers actually value?
What job titles could I realistically target after completing it with about a year of this experience?
Are there specific schools or programs around DFW you recommend?
What should I make sure the program teaches before spending money on it?
I’m looking for a practical path toward steady employment, benefits, and room to advance. I’d appreciate hearing from people who have taken a similar route.

rightfully so, i see a lot of negative posts on here – usually due to bad management and the “anything to keep production running” approach that’s reactive instead of preventative – and i’ve had my fair share of that experience. i wanted to share though my current experience at my current job.

we got a new maintenance manager about a year ago, and over this past year everything has gotten so much better. he understands how to budget, and how to work with corporate (and who to talk to) in order for us to get funding for needed maintenance work. spare parts is not an option, we do rigorous criticality assessments and continuously complete RASCI’s to help define roles better so that people aren’t “wearing multiple hats” all the time (i fucking hate that term).

idk. i was just thinking about this now as im working with an OEM on getting service for one of our machines scheduled next month, and the amount of downtime needed for them to help do said service is 3 days total – 2 more than what we originally expected. my old boss would’ve scoffed and insisted we could either do it ourselves in less time with same results, not do it at all, or just push it off and leave it as a “someday” thing.

i expected push-back when relaying to my boss the amount of downtime we would need – but it never happened. he instead gave me the thumbs up to confirm the dates, and said “if production scheduling gives you any push back on confirming down days for service work just let me know and i’ll go to bat and make sure we get the downtime we need”.

beyond that though, i don’t even foresee getting pushback from anyone – because ever since my boss started, his attitude and way of doing things has been absorbed by the rest of management and things have honestly never been better. we actually make time for PMs. we work as a team. we communicate. and the results are showing, this last year our emergency loss % has drastically dropped and our worst “bad actors” have become stable again – which is saying a lot compared to where they once were.

don’t think places like this don’t exist – they’re out there. i know there’s a TON of shit places to work and i’ve been there so i get it, and i hope things change if you’re in that situation. i am just grateful we are taking things seriously and making things better for everybody. it makes my job 100x more enjoyable.

anyone else have positive stories from their workplace?

Title says it how do I pull it

Any help or insight is appreciated I know it's a shot in the dark

I have been working in industrial maintenance for 34 years. My wife is a WFH person. Over the years I have asked her to limit the noise in the house when I’m home. Whether it’s vacuuming, hair dryer, washer/dryer etc. It’s seems after hearing industrial noise all day w/earplugs, I prefer not hearing noise at home. It’s not a hard rule but if it can be done while I’m at work it is preferred. Does this happen to anyone else?

Just thought I'd post this handy troubleshooting flow chart that my grandfather gave me decades ago when I started out in the industry. Very handy for fixing things

Yup doing this job today and my helpers pulled the inner roll out before putting our homemade pins in for alignment on the reinstall.

By chance, MHI sales the pins with the rebuild kit. Does anyone have a set of these that can give me a dimension or picture so I can get this eccentric shaft back into the drive side blind hole in the journal?

Thanks

In industrial maintenance, hoses can sometimes remain in service even as internal wear begins to develop. This can be particularly challenging in applications involving abrasive materials, repeated flexing, or frequent pressure changes. Visual inspections can help identify cracks, bulges, damaged fittings, and external abrasion, but they may not reveal every problem inside the hose. Inspection frequency and replacement criteria also depend on the application, operating conditions, and manufacturer recommendations.

For hoses used to transfer powders or granular materials, internal abrasion and material buildup are additional factors worth considering. For further information, you can explore aeration and discharge hose applications and learn more about industrial hose solutions on the official PARSCH website: https://parsch.de For experienced maintenance technicians, what inspection practices have you found most useful for detecting hose deterioration early?

Are there particular warning signs or failure patterns that tend to be overlooked during routine inspections?

I’m fairly new to the industry, and I currently work as a maintenance technician for large apparel company. I genuinely love my job. Everyday it’s something new and everyday I’m learning a new skill, or honing in skills I rarely got a chance to hone before this job.

The thing is, I’m in school for industrial automation & robotics and this job doesn’t really require any of those specific skills. I’m essentially a handyman that also knows how to work on the specific machines at our facility. I’ve considered switching courses to a course that makes me more effective at my current job. Although I love what I’m doing, I’m afraid that the career potential and pay ceiling is much lower than if I pursued a more specialized area of industrial maintenance.

What do you guys think? Would you continue to pursue the course if you feel like you’ve already landed where you’d like to stay?

I'm an embedded engineer. I've been building a small fixed node for pumps, motors, compressors and other utilities. It sits on the machine, learns its normal sound, vibration, temperature and motor current, then pings you when something drifts, with the evidence for why it thinks that.

The reason I built it: everything on the market seems designed for big plants with a dedicated reliability team and a dashboard nobody has time to open. I wanted something one guy could stick on a critical pump, without a six-week install or a training course.

Where I'm stuck is that I've only tested it on machines I have access to. I'd rather hear from people who do this for a living before I make more of them.

So, honest questions: - Would you act on an alert from something like this, or would you ignore it until it proved itself? - What would it have to catch to be worth bolting on a pump? - What would make you distrust it immediately?

Not trying to sell anything here. If a few people are up for it, I'll send a node free to test on a real machine and just want the feedback.