Priya's Thursday, two ways

Priya, an automation engineer at a food packaging plant.

Priya's Thursday starts early. A fill station keeps tripping on a blocked photoeye, and the line has stopped twice before her coffee. She copies the alarm text from the HMI and types it into ChatGPT with a plain description of what the machine was doing. It comes back with four likely causes and an order to check them. She starts with the reflector, finds a film of dust and wipes it clean. The line runs again at 7:10.

Mid morning she reviews a jam clear sequence in a PLC program. She pastes the timer rung into Gemini and asks it to check the logic and point out anything missing. It flags that the reset can fire while the guard is open. She adds an interlock, saves the change, and writes the note.

That afternoon a new case packer is due to run for the first time. Instead of building the test list in her head, she asks Claude for test cases for a machine with an e-stop, a guard door and a product changeover. It gives her a list she edits down to the cases that matter. She runs through them in order, so the first start is calm.

By four o'clock the commissioning notes are written and the customer email about the morning delay is drafted and sent. Priya leaves on time and drives her son to football practice, something she has missed before. Friday's first job is already on a note in her bag.