Dion Patelis
Dion Patelis is the lead engineer at Sentach. His has experience with Omron, Siemens and Yokogawa PLCs in mixed SCADA environments. The industrial systems he works on are usually interconnected with remote SQL databases accessed through web interfaces. Dion completed his studies in electrical power and industrial computer systems engineering in 2012. The industrial computer systems degree had a heavy slant toward control systems and chemical process engineering. The power systems degree focused on generators, power line and substation design. Before going to Murdoch University in Western Australia, he worked in the computer industry repairing and building networks using a mesh of Linux, Mac and Microsoft systems. He also spent much time developing business database systems using PHP and MySQL.
Dion has been an avid traveler and has worked in many different industries whilst on the road. He has built several houses working on all the associated facets. His drafting skills are exceptional which has helped greatly with many CNC milling and 3D printing projects. Combining all this coal face experience with the applied physics and math knowledge from a degree makes Dion a very capable person in the industrial environment. He can design and manufacture machinery, create chemical systems and install the industrial computer control.
“To create a decent control system, you must understand how the system is built and where it’s potential weak points are. You must be able to look at something and approximate whether it will work well enough in the given situation. Knowing when to be a perfectionist and when to install a ‘good enough’ solution is important in keeping costs down and making an overall system run as efficiently as possible. This doesn’t mean knowing everything. It means knowing enough about each section so it can be joined to the rest. Knowing where to look for the relevant information. When to do it yourself or hire the right person than can do a better job than you.
I enjoy the air conditioned clean software coding office environment as much as I enjoy swinging a spanner covered in grease and dirt in 45 degree heat. Bringing both worlds of ‘hands on’ and science together makes reliable tough industrial systems to be proud of.”