This is a part of an email I've sent to a manufacturing manager of a plant that contacted me for a quote of automating his manufacturing plant. I basically explain the scope of work and various phases he could expect to take place if the decides to hire us to help him automate the production. This is my email:

----------------

Regarding your plant specifically, I first would need to understand what kind of process it is to be able to suggest a rough automation system architecture.

On the other hand, when automating existing processes (production lines, machines), it comes down to incorporating a PLC (programmable logical controller) as a heart of an automation system. And possibly VFDs (variable frequency drives) in case it is necessary to vary the rotational speed of the electric motors (e.g. pumps, fans etc.). Other equipment that might need to be added are possibly sensors (measuring instruments for various media or position sensors - to read out the position of elements on the production line - as a reference for the PLC program). The last thing that might need to be addressed is a machine safety system and this can be covered within the same PLC system (a PLC that can accept safety signals and turn off actuators safely) or as a dedicated system with its own controller or a number of safety relays.

The brand of the PLC and the specific series of the PLC within the brand depends on the size and complexity of the process that requires automation. For smaller applications (e.g. standalone machines) it is enough to incorporate an entry level PLC system and then for bigger system a cluster of smaller PLC's or a larger (more capable) PLC system if the process has to be controlled as a unit (cannot be broken into functional groups - e.g. standalone processes independent of each other).

Generally, the choice of equipment should be made through 3 important aspects:

This might seem complex to you at first but I assure you that what I have stated above is fairly easy to plan and implement.

The Industrial Packaging Machine course you took on my website is exactly your case. We took and existing machine (the mechanics had still plenty of life left inside) and inspected the electrical equipment (actuators and sensor talking from the automation perspective). Based on the list of actuators (motors) and sensors (end switches, photoelectric sensors) we then created an electrical project (drafted in Eplan Electric P8). This project was the central point out of which the PLC programmer could write his code for the machine and the panel builder could build an electrical panel with all the necessary equipment inside (PLC, power distribution, VFDs etc.).

We then transported the electrical panel to the factory, the site team pulled the cables from the machine to the cabinet, the PLC programmer wrote the program and then we commissioned the whole system.

This basically describes the process that could take place also in your case.

Here are the phases:

1. Site inspection for a particular machine/production line - listing all actuators and sensors and writing a functional description of the machine (this would in large be an assignment for your team from the plant since you understand the application. Important: For field devices and cables - decide whether to leave them or replace - this applies in particular to cables if they are old (or overall in bad shape)

2. Creating a wiring diagram - thus determining the electrical panel size and all equipment inside, also to assess the price of the overall hardware necessary to automate the system in mind

3. Preparing hardware - electrical panels and field wiring

a) Building electrical panels in a workshop and transporting on the site (plant)
b) On-site activities - pulling cables to the location of the panel, possibly already connecting field devices before the panel arrives

4. Software engineering (writing PLC program) - this phase can start together or at latest after the point 2. Ideally, parallel to panel building to not waste time in the meantime

5. Commissioning - When all field devices (motors, sensors etc.) are connected on both sides (in the field and in the panel) the commissioning phase can take place. This generally means - checking the wiring and the wholeness of the system and then applying voltage to the whole system. Then the PLC programmer(s) fine tune the automation system and commission it.

6. The system is now in production and automated. The customer (plant) receives the as-built documentation (updated wiring diagram - electrical project), software code for the PLC (this is an option) and possible other documentation (per request/requirement) from the system integrator (PLC company). The customer is now ready to take over the automated system and signs an agreement with the system integrator that the job is done.

For smaller machines (such as the one you see in my course on the EEP academy) all these phases take altogether about 2-3 months from beginning until fully automating the machine.

You can hire separate companies to do various phases for you. Better option is to have everything done by one company - a turnkey solution for your system in the plant. This way everything comes from one company which then reduces a possibility for miscommunication.

 ----------------

The following story is a story of my colleague that has decided to move to Germany to pursue a career in electrical engineering. Let's call him Mark to differentiate him from upcoming stories from other colleagues. He describes his first steps, his first experience working in Germany and also how much he earned when he was working on various positions in the electrical engineering field. And a lot more. He is currently working as an electrical design engineer but it wasn't this good when he first came to Germany. He had to work hard to get to the current position...

*NOTE: You will see a lot of numbers in his story, regarding salary and hourly rates. Also net (after tax) and gross (before tax) income. This story and the numbers inside are just one example. Germany is a big country and prices vary between regions, including cost of life, salaries and hourly rates. Also a big role is a tax category you fall into, depending whether you are solo, married or married with wife and kids. In any case, do your research.

After graduating from university (graduate study of electrical engineering majoring in electrical power engineering) I searched for years to get a normal job in my field in my country but without success. I decided to go abroad and I decided that I will move to Germany, as many people from my country do. I come from the southeast Europe.

I had 2 years of electrical work internship, 5 years telecommunications and sales, 2 professional internships abroad, excellent knowledge of English language and a bunch of other additional less important experiences and achievements. Married, no children, 32 years at a time of the departure.

Since I had a relatively well-paid job, even though not in the profession, I didn’t want to search for any kind of job, just to be able to say that I work in Germany, while barely making it to the end of the month.
I wanted to work in my field so I was concentrating on searching for electrical engineering jobs. I have spent over a year in applying for various positions but without any success.

Mostly without any employer response.

I then finally realized a couple of things. First of all,  without no German language skills and without hands-on working experience from Germany (or at least for German companies elsewhere in the world), it is almost impossible to land a job in Germany. The fact that I was applying for jobs in Germany at the time of looking for a job was even more of a deal breaker in the eyes of potential employers. Companies whose official corporate language is English or for which it is
sufficient knowledge of English alone are almost non-existent in Germany. Although almost every employer requires knowledge
of that English, whether that is a necessity or not to be able to function properly on a daily basis in an office environment.

The plan was to go alone, find a job and after about 6 months, if it all seems sustainable, get my wife to join me in Germany. So, when I get there, I will immediately start to learn German and always work on getting a better job.

After spending some time researching living expenses in Germany, I have concluded that with  monthly income of about €1000 € I can barely survive, with €1500 € I have enough to get me by for a month and €2000 or more would be enough for a normal life.

It is highly advisable to take the income stories of people with a grain of salt because everyone likes to brag and people often leave out crucial details when they talk about how much they earn in Germany. A large number of them who have € 2500 or more net income per month forget to mention that it is with a number of various extras on the salary and with 220+ hours of work per month. You can take some rough conclusions from their stories, but the reality is often much different.

And when the differences between provinces (between states and regions in Germany), smaller and larger cities, etc. are additionally taken into account, it is difficult to obtain
the real picture.

Wages are not as good there as they used to be. And life is noticeably more expensive.
I thought that if I achieve to earn net €2000 per month and especially when my wife comes and she start to work too, that things will look pretty good.

As the initial jobs were quite poorly paid for several months I was looking for a better offer that would satisfy me more both professionally and financially. Jobs exclusively in a German company where I would work only with the Germans (hence be forced to learn the language quickly and not rely on English) was in focus.

€14.00-15.00 (€30,000/year) is already a solid hourly rate given to those with a little more experience or to those in better companies. That hourly rate would bring me to the desired income of about €2000 net per month.

The only way to get more without experience and language is to work in the exceptional
unfavorable conditions (e.g. constantly on the constructions sites, constantly overtime
work, etc.). Ironically, I saw the first offer that seemed more than good to me on local online job portal in my country.

The hourly rate was 12.20 € + 5 € extra per hour. The  5 € supplement was reportedly non-taxable which significantly raised the net income (I'll explain later in the article what is this).

It was a "Zeitfirma" (type of company in Germany specialized in hiring personnel on a temporary basis, usually for lower skilled jobs) company in the north of Germany. I signed up for the ad. That was my first application for a non-engineering job, though still in electrical engineering field, as an electrician. The next day I received an email from the company literally asking me: When I can start ?. In the last couple of months prior to applying for that job, I worked on my German language skills and managed to learn a little bit, so I had some of the most basic vocabulary though without the ability to have a normal conversation about anything.

 I quit my job at the company where I was working at the time, closed everything in my country (accounts and everything) except the foreign currency bank account and headed to my better tomorrow. There was no turning back.

Since it was a "Zeitfirma" type of company, the employer was very friendly during the whole process of applying and interviewing for a job.

The reason for them to be so friendly is that "Zeitfirma" type of companies hire workers only to outsource them as soon as possible to a construction site somewhere, so the only thing that matters to them is that they can sell me to someone.

especially for the good/experienced ones. The lowest skilled electricians will probably end up somewhere in remote areas of Germany only to pull cables and close to no need to use the language on a daily basis during the work time. I didn't mind, I knew that this was my stepping stone to something better, a direct ticket to a German job market and I would also be well paid for a job that requires the lowest level of skill in electrical engineering field (pulling cables).

I soon started working in this "Zeitfirma". In the first month on this job I was constantly moving around working on different construction sites, where I would move every week from one to another construction site. One week, the job is done and then the next construction site. So it was pretty dynamic. The company was taking care of finding me an accommodation on every construction site and I was paying for it out of my pocket.

The accommodations were in most cases rooms in someone's house and the price range was 18 - 25 € /day for the room which is not particularly cheap. I could, of course, take care of the accommodation by myself but since I didn't speak the language and I was moving every week to a next construction site, I quickly gave up on that option. All in all, the company was there for me, they took care of everything and my sole responsibility was to get up, go to work, do the best I can on the job and then repeat this the next day.

The company of this kind is, of course, aware of the fact that the people that come to work for them are always on the lookout for new, better, opportunities so they try to a certain extent to make people feel pleasant working for them in a hope that this will in return prolong the stay of the employees at least for a little bit.

After the first month working for this company they finally found me a client that was to keep me for a longer period of time. It was a huge metal factory (ironwork) with over 170 years of tradition!
This factory hosts in their premises over 100 smaller companies from different areas of expertise that then offer their services to the factory.

I was stationed in one of the three electrical engineering companies that were servicing the electrical systems of the factory. Huge premises, countless electromechanical systems, substations etc. A whole lot to do and a whole lot to learn. To my current employer to which I was outsourced was only important that I am in a good physical shape, decent human beign (read: normal) and a team player that is ready to learn a lot. So that was not an issue. We had a team of five. One young engineer, one team leader (30+ years of experience) and then me and my two buddies, the three stooges.

Only one of the guys spoke somewhat English (since I still couldn't speak German) so I was sticking to him a lot at the beginning so that I could have some sort of communication with them.When I realized how much of a problem is the fact that I don't speak German, I asked my boss (as a joke at the beginning) to write down 5 words every day that he expects me to memorize. Although this was somewhat a joke from my side, they liked the idea lot and accepted it. After a couple of months of doing so, I was able to take over basic assignments based on our communication.

Since the price this company pays for me has gone up with every quarter (every three months staying with them), they told me that I started to cost them around €50.00 / hour after the fourth quarter with them, given all the extras, so they unfortunately decided not to extend the contract with my "Zeitfirma"...

The workers in the metal industry in Germany get a special extra on every hour of work. I got this extra raised every quarter and at the very end with that company I was getting €2.5 / hour bonus. All in all so far, I was mostly earning €2500 net / month, where it also from time to time went over €3000 / month, if I had a little bit of overtime. The key component was the € 5 / hour, tax free, which would give me an extra of €900 / month. To receive this €5 / hour I needed to be at least 100km away from my home address.

Without this, my basic salary would be €1600 net / month, that is, around €26,000 gross / year. 

After roughly one year with the same employer/client, my company informed me that I am starting to work for another company. It was time to go since, as mentioned above, I got a little too expensive. 

At this moment, I was thinking of being eligible for a raise. I insisted that they find me a company to work for within 30 km of my current place of residence. I also asked for a raise, from €12.20 to €16.00. This initiative gave some results. It took them only two days to find me a new employer and it was around 20km distance from my place. They also gave me a new hourly rate of €14.00.

The had departments for software engineering, hardware engineering, variable speed drives, site electricians and a panel building workshop. I joined the panel building team. Since I already had experience with panel building, only after a month on this job, they asked me if I would like to start to work directly for them.

The hourly rate was €14,00 for the new workers and after first year this would get to €15.00. Only the people that work for years over there and are very experienced would get €16.00 / hour. In any case, the offer was on the table.

I was thinking to myself - this is definitely a step forward, I would get rid of the "Zeitfirma" and the constant change of sites and I would finally start to work in a regular, normal company and altogether for a better pay. Hm, it would be overall a better salary but worse monthly income. This is due to the fact that I would lose those extras on the hourly rate and I would end up only having a basis salary. Nevertheless, this was not a deal breaker. I was definitely into sticking to the plan to join this company as their employee.

At the moment they had a vacancy for an electrical designer (in German: Elektrokonstrukteur | E-Planer). I told them I would like to apply for this job since this is where I see myself more than in my current assignment (working in a workshop wiring panels) and that I find this position significantly more interesting. The electrical design job would mainly be about drafting wiring diagrams in Eplan in which I had close to zero experience at the time.

They gave me two weeks probation to see whether I will show progress and the will to learn. After these two weeks they told be that they are satisfied with what I have shown and that I got the job. We agreed on €43,000.00 / year gross which gave around €2500 / month net plus a 13. paycheck. We agreed on discussing further details of the contract the job later on. Why?

We quickly learned how "Zeitfirmen" protect themselves from losing employees (their main source of income). The built in a clause in the contract witch their employees which prohibits their employees to be hired by the company where they outsource their employees for a certain period of time. They build this clause also in the contracts with their clients (where they outsource their employees). After a period of back and forth in negotiations, they agreed on keeping me for the next 9 months as outsourced and then I can be hired directly at this company.

In the meantime, I was contacted by several companies via the German business social platform Xing offering me employment. Since I still haven't signed anything with my current employer, I responded to these and in one of those companies I had and offer for an engineering position. I was asking for a gross yearly salary of €65,000. The seemed very interested, but since the recruitment process for this position prolonged for over a half a year, I came to a position where I needed to decide whether I will continue to pursuit this offer or I simply accept the offer my current employer gave to me. Taking into consideration some thing happening in my private life at that moment, I decided to take the offer from my current employer. And this is the job I am still working on at the moment of writing this article.

So here I am. After 3,5 years in Germany, started to work as a cable puller and now free from "Zeitfirma", working in an engineering company and earning €43,000,00/y gross.

I have an office that I share with one of my colleagues. We work on the same job, as hardware designers and we mainly work in Eplan on a daily basis. The hardware design department has 4 people. The colleagues are always ready to give a helping hand in case I am stuck with something. After all, we are a team and we are all on the same side.

When I first started to work on this job, they gave me enough time to accommodate. We started with simpler assignments and with time, I started to get more complex ones. Given that the work is done mainly on a computer, the dictionary is always there so this makes it easier for me to learn the language while I work, e.g. when I need to quickly translate some more complex phrases.

This job is an ideal environment to both learn the work and the language. I could probably get a better job earlier, but probably not with all working conditions I have over here.

So, after roughly 1,5 year on this position and altogether 3,5 years of working in Germany, I feel that there is a time for something more. I feel that I am with every new day more ready to get what I came for...

So you have decided to apply for a job in Germany. How the language skills play role in the process of applying for jobs and later on when you start to work in a company in Germany? Let's find out.

Let's first define who you are.
So you are an electrical engineer and you want to work as an electrical design engineer in some engineering office in Germany, on nice German projects.

I will talk about this occupation since I work in that field, so I know the situation. I've been there.

The truth

The rule of thumb is: The more experienced you are, the less German language skills will be necessary for you to land a job in Germany. And this only applies when you want to get a job.

So if you are a well-established engineer with international working experience from working on top projects for top customers worldwide then you probably aren't even reading this because you have more than enough work and money, to begin with.

On the other hand, if you are really into working in Germany then you might want to read further, even if you are an expert in your field.

So to land a job in Germany if you are an expert, your expertise and list of projects will be enough.

Then you start to work. You have to collaborate with your German colleagues on a project, you need to discuss the project requirements with your customer or your boss. And you don't speak German. The senior people in Germany mostly don't speak (or don't want to) English.
Some of them even learned Spanish or some other language as a second language.

Be aware of that. It's not a problem if you work with younger colleagues, they pretty much all handle English very well. The seniors don't. Period.

So at this point, it doesn't even matter how experienced you are if you are not able to resolve daily project issues with your seniors or with your end customer (e.g. factory representatives).

Not to mention you also need to be able to function in your daily routine: shopping for groceries, fixing your car, find an apartment, open a bank account, pay taxes, etc.

It gets 10 times harder if you have a family, kids, etc. I'll explain why in the upcoming posts.

Small vs big company

It might be easier for you to find a job in a smaller company in a rural area (if you still don't speak German) than to find a job in a big, renowned company located in a suburban area of a larger city.

Why is that?

It's simple. The big, renowned company on the outskirts of a larger city is also a goal for many experienced German engineers.

The smaller companies in rural areas tend to have more problems finding suitable candidates to fill in their vacancies. And German companies like to have headquarters in rural areas. Since Germany aims at doing business internationally, it makes normally not much sense to the companies to move their business to the closer vicinity of a bigger city where also costs of maintaining a company, rise. They stay in their area where they started their business and where they already own the land property etc.

Outsourcing companies (German: "Leihfirmen, Zeitfirmen...")

These companies might be your entrance ticket to a better job someday after you upskill your German. Their business strategy is fairly simple. Some of those companies have thousands of workers. Some of them concentrate on hiring only electrical engineers or people with electrical occupations in general (technicians, electricians, etc.). You might have higher chances of getting employed in those companies than to immediately land a job in a well established German company with all the benefits.

So these outsourcing companies hire workers and then they outsource the workers to another company that is in a need of professionals for a certain project, for a limited period of time. It's like you work as a freelancer but you are not. You are in fact employed and your outsourcing company finds you new projects/contracts/assignments, mostly at the customer's location or on a construction site, in the factory etc.

Here's an example

Just a small example here: You are an electrician. Your outsourcing company has a customer that is a system integrator and offers turnkey solutions for industrial automation systems. This customer needs to hire 10 electricians to pull the cables and connect the field devices to the components in electrical cabinets. And this customer doesn't have his own team of electricians because he normally concentrates on programming and commissioning the production line/machine.

So he hires your outsourcing company. This is where you now come into the picture. You and 9 of your colleagues join the project. Your company takes care of the accommodation at the location and transportation from your company to the construction site/factory. Your company also takes care of the daily commute. You get a van or two cars and you travel every day from your accommodation (apartment or a room, hotel, etc.) in the vicinity of the site to the site/work.

You might have a team member that will take care of discussing the daily chores for your team. Or your outsourcing company takes care of that from the office. And you start to work. You pull the cables, your team leader makes sure with the site manager that everything is done according to the requirements of the customers and that's it.

Once the project is over you move to another construction site. And the story repeats itself again and again. As said, just a small example for you to understand how things work.

"Leihfirma" VS "Zeitfirma"

What's the difference between a Leihfirma and a Zeitfirma? A Zeitfirma is generally a mean little brother of the Leihfirma. Leihfirma is reserved for professionals, meaning higher-skilled workers that tend to work for one customer for a longer period of time. Like the example above, an electrician working on a project in a factory. Or engineers, programmers, etc.

A Zeitfirma (company for temporary employment) is a company that generally hires a lower-skilled workforce for jobs that don't require expertise. Such as cleaning personnel.

If you currently don't have other options than to work in Zeitfirma, at least make sure you check the company: if they pay in time, the working conditions, mobbing, etc. The Internet will tell you everything you need to know.

Especially in Germany. You have a number of websites in Germany where people rate companies, such as Kununu.com
At the time of writing this post (October 2020), they had 4.4 million reviews and almost 1 million employers reviewed. The employers are reviewed directly from employees (either current or former employess), so no BS there.

I was also working in a "Leihfirma"

I also worked like this. I was outsourced to a well-established company in the south of Germany. The company offers turnkey solutions for automation systems in the automotive industry ("Karosseriebau") sector. I was working as an electrical design engineer and I was mainly working in ePLAN since ePLAN is where every electrical project is created if you work in the car body manufacturing sector in Germany.

I was lucky that I was already speaking German to some extent so the technical issues were not a problem to resolve with my team members and my project manager.

That's why I tell you this. I speak from my experience. It is important to learn German if you want to work there. Even if you are lucky enough to get a job in Germany although you still don't speak the language, the company will expect you to learn the language as soon as possible. Some companies even pay for the language school.

The higher the degree...

And be aware of the following: The higher degree you have, the better you need to speak German.
So if you are an electrician and you are working in a team, then you might have a team leader that will take care of the communication with German colleagues that don't speak any other language besides German.

But if you are an engineer, then it is expected of you to know German. There are not many engineers on a project (compared to a number of electricians) so no one is going to accept that you don't speak German and you want to work in Germany on projects for German customers. Especially if you work as an electrical designer and you need to discuss the changes on the project during the design phase, with your customer, and with your project manager.

Here's an exception to this rule: PLC programmers (German: "SPS Programmierer" and robot programmers (German: "Roboterprogrammierer").
These experts are currently (always) in such high demand in Germany that Germans are ready to accept that these guys only speak English. On the other hand, at least one of the PLC programmer and one of the robot programmer still needs to speak German in case he needs to discuss project requirements, changes in the design, layout, etc.

It would be great if you would be that guy that speaks both German and English, it doesn't matter in which field you work, wouldn't it? This is then an additional qualification for you, just by knowing the language.

It is nowadays really not a problem to learn a foreign language, with all those free resources on the internet. Don't hesitate and start to learn German today!

Until next time...

Ivan Vidovic