Nick Hitchcock's Bio
Texas Director of Operations
Hired in 2008, Nick Hitchcock has served in several engineering and management roles in the company’s Austin office. Starting out at the Michigan office, and moving to Texas in July 2010, he now serves as the Director of Texas Operations.
Asset TrackingBlogSiemens
Unleash the true potential of industrial automation with Siemens SIMATIC WinCC OA, the robust SCADA system with transformative capabilities and seamless integration with Siemens S7-1500 PLC. WinCC OA revolutionizes data visualization and control, empowering businesses to achieve peak performance and...
BlogControl Systems Integration
Get insight into Siemens S7-1500S Software Controller from Patti Engineering expert Nick Hitchcock What is the Siemens S7-1500S Software Controller Siemens’ S7-1500S Software Controller is a virtualized PLC that runs on an industrial PC. This PC-based automation can be programmed just...
Blog
In the world of automation, choosing the right machine vision system can make all the difference. With the proper framework, companies can achieve faster, more accurate quality checks, and greatly enhance the efficiency of their production lines. With broad industry...
BlogIndustry 4.0 / DigitalizationSiemens
Virtually testing improvements in your plant allows you to test changes with just a few clicks. Siemens Tecnomatix® Plant Simulation is a great tool for generating reports on product flow, labor usage and other data analytics about your plant. Shahrokh...
BlogControl Systems Integration
There are many factors to consider when deciding on a vision system in your automation system. Three of the biggest are hardware, lighting, and lenses. Hardware Machine Vision sensor resolution How does the sensor resolution affect my machine vision? The...
BlogControl Systems IntegrationSiemens
It’s one of the most recognizable icons in the world and, as part of a $30 million dollar renovation project, the Statue of Liberty had its obsolete, 30-year-old rescue elevator replaced by a TESI elevator with the latest Siemens control...
BlogCompany
Blog post by Marc Bourque, Electrical Engineer What is arc flash, and why should you be concerned about it? What is arc flash? Arc flash (also called a flashover) is an uncontrolled release of energy. The name arc flash pretty...
BlogFANUCRobotics
We've had a new office mate this week in our Austin office! This FANUC LR-Mate is getting ready to inspect parts on an upcoming project. He's got a payload of 7kg and you won't need a safety cage around this little guy....
BlogControl Systems Integration
Blog post by Marc Bourque, Electrical Engineer What is Remote I/O? Remote I/O is the ability to control inputs and outputs that are not near the PLC. Most remote I/O devices use some sort of network connection to control multiple...
BlogRobotics
Blog post by Ian Mogab, Controls Engineer Often times you may hear of manufacturers opting to replace their human workforce with robots in order to increase productivity. However, there are some drawbacks to doing this; robots are not good at...
BlogRobotics
Blog Post by Ian Mogab, Controls Engineer What are UR robots? UR robots, or universal robots, are collaborative robots, meaning that if they are configured correctly they can work alongside humans without a safety enclosure. This allows for added productivity...
BlogCompanyTexas
Blog post by Steve Palmgren, VP of Texas Operations Exactly 6 years ago today, I found myself trying to "help" our cats in the parking lot of a gas station at 2am on our 28-hour nonstop drive to Austin from Michigan. ...
BlogControl Systems Integration
Blog Post by Patti Engineering Senior Engineer Nick Hitchcock, P.E Recently, we worked on a project to monitor and control equipment over distances. In our case, we were controlling and monitoring water wells spread throughout a city. Originally, the wells...
BlogControl Systems Integration
Blog post by Shahrokh Yousefi, Controls Engineer, Patti Engineering Texas Office The Object-Oriented (O-O) approach to programming has long proven successful in software applications, but is not common in industrial automation software development. There are many benefits to this approach...
BlogControl Systems IntegrationSiemens
Blog post by Shahrokh Yousefi, Controls Engineer, Patti Engineering Texas Office While working on a machine that is controlled by a SIMATIC S7-200 controller, have you been surprised by the amount of control functions that this tiny PLC can handle?...
BlogControl Systems Integration
This week, several of us tackled programming solutions where timers were the linchpin. On one project, a timer was extending cycle time, which caused a huge production back up. Changing the length of the timer restored smooth production. On another,...
BlogControl Systems Integration
Blog post by Steve Palmgren, Vice President Texas Operations, Patti Engineering To the layman packet sniffing may sound a little suspect…drug related possibly??? But, in an engineer’s world using RS232 packet sniffing hardware is a great way to diagnose and...
BlogControl Systems Integration
Patti Engineering upgraded the controls for the existing shipping sorter at The Men’s Wearhouse Bellfort Village Distribution Center in Houston, Texas.
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