Industrial IoT & Manufacturing Data Intern

About The Business: Graphic PLC has been established in Crediton since 1968, with global manufacturing subsidiaries in the USA, Italy and China. We manufacture high performance printed circuit boards (PCB) in low to medium volumes for high reliability applications to companies worldwide. The main markets are defence, aerospace, security and communications.

Overview: Project objective: Connect selected PCB manufacturing equipment to a secure Industrial IoT architecture, collect live and historical machine/process data, send it to Microsoft Azure, and present useful production and engineering information through Grafana dashboards. The intern will work with live manufacturing equipment and help build an end-to-end solution that connects machines, gathers process and production data, transfers it securely to the cloud, and displays it in useful dashboards for production, engineering and management.

Desirable Skills: Knowledge or interest in some of the following would be particularly useful: PLC programming or PLC communications Siemens automation equipment Industrial networking Linux Python Node-RED MQTT OPC UA / Modbus Cloud computing Microsoft Azure SQL / databases Grafana or other data-visualisation platforms

Job Description:

We are a PCB manufacturing company looking for an enthusiastic engineering or technology student/recent graduate to join us for a practical Industry 4.0 internship focused on machine connectivity, Industrial IoT and manufacturing data.

The successful candidate will help us connect selected PCB production equipment, including the drilling and wet-process machinery, to a central data platform.

Some machines already provide PLC, network or cloud connectivity, while others will require data to be extracted directly from the machine controller. 

The aim is to develop an end-to-end solution using a Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 edge gateway, secure industrial communication, Microsoft Azure and Grafana.

The project will involve collecting live machine and process data, storing historical information and building dashboards that give production, engineering and management better visibility of machine status, alarms, downtime, utilisation and process performance.

This is a hands-on project in a live manufacturing environment and offers exposure to PLCs, industrial networking, Linux, edge computing, MQTT/OPC UA/Modbus, cloud infrastructure, databases and data visualisation.

We are particularly interested in candidates studying automation, electrical/electronic engineering, mechatronics, robotics, computer engineering, computer science, embedded systems, manufacturing engineering or a related subject.

Previous experience with every technology is not required; curiosity, problem-solving ability and an interest in connecting real industrial equipment to modern software systems are more important.

The intern will work directly with our management and engineering/production teams, with the objective of delivering a working proof of concept and a documented architecture that can be expanded across the factory.

Main responsibilities

• Survey selected PCB production machines and identify their PLC/controller, network interfaces, existing cloud connectivity and available data.
• Determine how each machine can communicate, including OPC UA, Modbus TCP, Siemens S7, Ethernet/IP, MQTT, REST API or manufacturer-specific protocols.
• Investigate machines that already provide vendor cloud or remote-monitoring services and determine whether their data can be integrated.
• Connect selected machines to a Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 Industrial IoT Gateway. Read live machine and PLC data without disrupting the existing machine control system.
• Develop an edge data-acquisition solution to collect, timestamp, normalise and buffer machine data.
• Create a common data structure so information from different manufacturers can be handled consistently. Implement secure communication between factory edge devices and Microsoft Azure.
• Configure Azure services for IoT/device ingestion, routing, processing and storage. Select or implement suitable storage for live and historical manufacturing data.
• Develop Grafana dashboards for production, engineering, maintenance and management users.
• Document the complete architecture, interfaces, configuration and recommendations for factory-wide expansion. 
• Anticipated outcomes / deliverables

The successful candidate will help us connect selected PCB production equipment - including drilling and wet-process machinery - to a central data platform

The aim is to develop an end-to-end solution using a Siemens SIMATIC IOT2050 edge gateway, secure industrial communication, Microsoft Azure and Grafana.

Desirable Skills
This internship would suit a student or recent graduate studying one of the following, or a related discipline:

• Automation & Control Engineering
• Electrical / Electronic Engineering
• Mechatronics
• Robotics
• Computer Engineering
• Computer Science
• Industrial Digitalisation
• Manufacturing Engineering
• IoT / Embedded Systems

Knowledge or interest in some of the following would be particularly useful:

• PLC programming or PLC communications
• Siemens automation equipment
• Industrial networking
• Linux
• Python
• Node-RED
• MQTT
• OPC UA / Modbus
• Cloud computing
• Microsoft Azure
• SQL / databases
• Grafana or other data-visualisation platforms