25 January 2012
Siemens provide the products behind the Industrial Control Competition
By Sabine Stengel, Siemens
There were 25 hopeful candidates that succeeded in making it to the final round of the Industrial Control (skill 19) competition at WorldSkills London 2011. Thanks to the Product Sponsor, and WorldSkills International Global Industry Partner Siemens, the Competitors were provided with the automation and drive technology components they needed to participate in the final round.
The key components provided were the SIMATIC control CPU 314C, SIMATIC Human Machine Interface Panel TP177, SINAMICS frequency converter G120 and the relevant software. To reach this stage, the finalists had successfully come through regional and national championships, competing against hundreds and in some cases thousands of other hopefuls. The 25 national winners were invited to come to the finals in London to pit their skills against the world’s best young industrial control electricians.
They had each invested an average of three to four months and received coaching and support from the national WorldSkills Experts. As the competition progressed, new areas of focus were introduced every day: day 1: schematic drawing, day 2: troubleshooting and measurement, day 3: installation, day 4: programming. The panel of Experts examined up to 400 different criteria, such as dimensions, installation, schematic drawings, troubleshooting in manual operation, wiring, automatic operation and safety. The competition lasted a total of 22 hours.
The gold medal was finally awarded to Korea’s Hee Jae Yoo. Yuki Okayama from Japan secured the silver and bronze went to Switzerland’s Andrin Cavegn. Roland Scheuerer, Project Manager of the program “Siemens Automation Cooperates with Education” (SCE), presented the three winners with vouchers to equip their vocational college with the same Siemens core components as used in the competition.
The SCE program takes a systematic approach to providing sustained educational support across the globe. It support all kinds of research, development and educational establishments involved in teaching in the field of industrial automation, and provides added value in the form of partnerships, specialist knowledge and expertise.
For more information about Siemens and their education programmes go to www.siemens.com/sce and www.siemens.com/worldskills.