Ithaca, New York
Posted: 11-Jan-23
Location: Medford, Massachusetts
Salary: Open
Internal Number: 16261
Department Summary:
The Department of Facilities Services is responsible for the safe, reliable, and efficient operations of buildings and utility systems, consisting of approximately 5.7 million square feet of space across four campuses (Somerville/Medford, Grafton, Boston and the SMFA). This role will be based out of Medford, MA.
A broad range of services are provided to support each campus which include the repair and maintenance of the University's assets, capital renewal, engineering, energy and utilities management, waste management, event management, care of grounds, janitorial and pest services. We are committed to developing the highest standards of quality and performance and dedicated to continuous improvement across each department. We work very closely with the Department of Public & Environmental Safety coordinating daily operations with Tufts Police, Fire Marshalls, Industrial Hygiene and Lab Safety personnel. We also support the planning, design, construction, and turnover processes for major renovations and new construction in conjunction with the Department of Capital Programs. This role will have reporting requirements which are to be coordinated with these departments. Each campus utility consists of medium voltage electricity-, high- and low-pressure steam, hot water, and chilled water using both centralized and distributed boiler, chiller, power generation and heat recovery assets. These services are distributed primarily through direct buried conduit and piping systems. The efficiency and flexibility of these plants make them a key part of Tufts carbon neutral by 2050 commitment. This role will be responsible for the reliable, safe, and efficient automation, integration, control, fault detection and alarming of the buildings consuming utilities and these utility systems.
It is a fundamental tenet for all employees within the Operations Division to support, engage and promote university investment in sustainable and economically defensible business practices that balance our stature as a prominent environmental steward with our need to deliver preeminent, cost effective education.
What You'll Do
Job Summary:
Tufts University is seeking out a Senior Controls Engineer passionate about developing, and implementing new instrumentation, controls, automation, integration, and alarms management projects. The candidate will have experience as a subject matter expert in this area of engineering practice and demonstrate the ability to remained focused while concentrating on large amounts of information. The candidate will take initiative to effectively coach and train users in how to operate, maintain, and optimize controls hardware, software, and systems integrations.
As a collaborative partner with facilities management, technicians, and control operators, the candidate must understand and interpret their requirements to follow up with clear direction through work orders, audits, reports, and adjustments to service contracts. The candidate will also work closely with capital planning and capital programs to ensure scope of work is clearly defined upfront and purchased to support renovations and new construction projects. Opportunities to introduce new ideas and strategies that improve data centralization and new hardware/software outsid e of the current inventory will require experience with supporting the development of business cases. These strategies will be presented to the Tufts Technology Steering Committee to ensure alignment with other University hardware, software, and information management initiatives and establish funding allocations to support the candidate's vision.
Understanding where to make improvements will require developing a clear understanding of the Operations Division goals, Capital planning project forecasts, Facilities Maintenance backlogs, Operations Control Center intake and dispatch rules, and Engineering & Utilities initiatives. This role will bring industry best practices in Asset Management and Reliability standards to align with strategic investments in IBM Maximo program, organizational change recommendations, data security, and data centralization. Day to day responsibilities include monitoring, inspecting, and issuing corrective work orders to support the overall reliability, efficiency, and safety of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire, and security systems. The candidate will have experience with building performance indicator equations and effectively communicating this information as key insights for each Department head. Annual goals and metrics will be established to identify opportunities to reduce risk and maximize efficiencies in measurements, workflow, automation processes, equipment, systems, and standards. The candidate will work directly with facilities, operations, project managers, architects, engineers, contractors, and manufacturers to provide solutions tailored to meet the needs of each campus and its stakeholders.
This role will also be responsible for providing direct technical support and training to internal and external system users to ensure consumers of data and information have the appropriate knowledge and tools to repair, adjust, and maintain planned and unplanned work. As part of Tufts University human capital development, the candidate will maintain training records, certifications, permissions, and ongoing curriculum to ensure Tufts University resources are evolving with the sophistication of the technology being introduced on each campus.
May be required to work an irregular schedule and/or shift as required by the needs of operations. Engineering & Utilities is headquartered in Medford, MA. However, approximately 20-50% travel requirement will fluctuate based on demands of the Facilities, Utilities, Engineering and Planning projects. Some evening or weekend work as required.
Occasional emergency on-site support as required. Work requires regularly entering and navigating all building and mechanical/electrical system spaces, and routinely accessing and conducting inspections in both small/confined and high spaces including roofs. Some lifting may be required.
What We're Looking For
Basic Requirements:
- Minimum 5 years of design and engineering experience with automatic temperature control, direct digital control, primary logic control, supervisory control, and data acquisition systems.
- Experience with the design and architecture of ethernet, wireless, and fiberoptic networks that support the controls, automation, and integration environment is also preferred.
- Minimum 3 years of field experience with the hardware, software, communications protocols, and programming interfaces including the development of code/ladder logic, applications development, point to point checkout, sequence testing, and functional testing.
- Experience from comparable technical positions & industry will be considered including the power, process, healthcare, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and/or utilities.
- Excellent understanding of process and instrumentation diagrams, process flow diagrams (PID's, PFD's) and the ability to communicate markups and changes using ISA standards
- Electronic control and electrical systems protective relay design experience is a plus
- Minimum of two years drafting experience with platforms similar to AutoCAD (Schematics development, panel design, and manufacturing process control experience will be considered)
- Ability to travel up to 50% of the time, locally and overnight
- Ability to work evening or weekend hours as needed
- Excellent problem solving and multi-tasking skills
- Strong communication skills: ability to synthesize and effectively communicate complicated concepts to general audiences.
- Advanced knowledge of control theory, the basics of electricity, input and output devices, and the influence of input and output characteristics on control possibilities and performance
- Expert in developing written specifications, schedules, and control diagrams to identify what is to be installed, how it is to be installed, how it is expected to operate. (If candidate has more field related, construction and/or operations and maintenance experience these criteria will be adjusted to consider how effectively the candidate can interpret and communicate written specifications, control diagrams, installation quality, operations and maintenance expectations).
- Ability to quickly discern interoperability of controllers, network configurations and data sharing protocols
- Experience with replacement, modification, and maintenance of pneumatic and electric controls
- Effectively communicate the difference between a building process automation system and an industrial/utility grade process automation system.
- Experience with Metasys User Interface (Preferably V.11.0)
- Know which performance indicators and metrics are most important to measure the efficiency of a building, plant and utility operation.
- Working knowledge of the codes and standards that govern instrumentation, controls, and automation of high-performance buildings and sophisticated industrial processes.
- Driver's License
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills to foster effective working relationships at all levels
- Strong technical skills in developing system codes and analyzing programming languages to serve control functions and ongoing tuning of the processes.
- Microsoft Outlook, Office, PowerPoint, Excel.
- IBM Maximo or other work order management system.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 3+ years' experience in Rockwell (Allen Bradley) PLC/HMI programming or similar applications
- 3+ years' experience with Factory Talk View Studio SE/ME and Pi Historian or similar applications
- Measurement & Verification Certification and/or strong working knowledge of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP). Credentials to obtain certification after 1 year of service.
- Experience with C++, Matlab, Microsoft VBA
- Formal education in Data Science, statistics, or specialization in Machine Learning.
- Strong skills in 1 or more programming languages – Python, R or Java for machine learning applications.
- Experience with Data Science and Machine Learning Frameworks
- Experience with Setting up machine learning problem spaces and solutions using Time Series, Anomaly Detection, Natural Language Processing etc.
- Evaluating performance and efficacy of Machine Learning solutions.
- Experience with using automation and analytics to assist with the Measurement & Verification process in retro-commissioning (RCx), existing building commissioning (EBCx), monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx), and ongoing commissioning (Cx) processes.
- Strong working knowledge of International Society of Automation standards.
Pay Range
Minimum $100,100.00, Midpoint $125,150.00, Maximum $150,200.00
Salary is based on related experience, expertise, and internal equity; generally, new hires can expect pay between the minimum and midpoint of the range.
