Concerned about robots and machines taking your job? Learn to control and maintain those machines in the Instrumentation and Control Engineering Technician/Technology programs at St. Lawrence College. Concerned you may be unemployed in a pandemic? Learn a skill that will keep you employed.

“Instrumentation describes the control, maintenance, and design of any process. It is the practice of calibration, control, design, electric hookup, and programming.” Urban Dictionary

Few colleges in Ontario offer an Instrumentation and Control Engineering Technology program and the workforce with these skills is shrinking due to retirements. As a result demand for these skills is high and continues to grow stronger every year.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
Hands On: The program is practical and hands-on. Core subject areas have approximately a 2:1 ratio of lab hours to theory hours. Students will be working with the equipment found in the industry. The program provides students with a sound knowledge of process measurement and control theory. They will be trained to work in the modern team-oriented organization with emphasis on productive interaction with peers.

Flexibility: The program accommodates high school graduates, mature students making a career change and post-graduate students wishing to acquire practical skills. Students enrolled in the two-year technician program may, upon graduation, transfer directly into the more rigorous and theoretical third year and earn a technology diploma.

Job satisfaction: Control systems are the brains behind the devices that produce everyday goods and keep our environment and utilities safe. Jobs are found in municipal waste and water utilities, building environment controls as well as assembly and manufacturing. In control systems, different tasks and problem solving are performed daily. Our graduates have told us; “You never do the same thing twice”. The control systems field is continuously evolving.

Technologists will often work with equipment in a complete system, ensuring that the individual devices work as a unit. Technologists have a greater theoretical understanding of control systems, communications, programming and technical project planning, allowing them to become involved in engineering design, as well as device and system specification.

Co-operative Education Opportunities: Both the technician and technologist programs now offer co-operative education opportunities – depending on availability of positions. These paid work­place educational opportunities will expand as we cultivate more co-op positions with other firms.

Co-op opportunities occur during a four month summer term after the second and fourth semesters and/or a full year term between the fifth and sixth semesters. The number of co-op positions available each year is not predefined. Students are able to apply for positions posted by various indus­trial firms and government agencies through­out the year. These opportunities give our students valuable on-the-job experience, financial help with their educational costs and enhanced employment possibilities.

Control Systems are the brains behind the devices that produce everyday goods, and they keep our environment and utilities running smoothly. Jobs are abundant for technicians and technologists across a variety of sectors such as municipal waste and water utilities, assembly and manufacturing plants, building automation, medical simulation labs, research labs, etc. In control systems, different tasks and problem solving are performed daily. Our graduates have told us; “You never do the same thing twice”. The control systems field is continuously evolving. Technologists will often work with equipment in a complete system, ensuring that the individual devices work as a unit. Technologists have a solid theoretical understanding of control systems, communications, programming and technical project planning, etc., all of which allow grads to become involved in engineering design, as well as device and system specification.

Industry

Smart Building Automation Systems
Hospital Simulation Labs
Aeronautical Simulation Labs
Nuclear Facilities
Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants
Automation – anywhere there is a need for human-computer interaction
Process Plants
Municipal Utilities
Aerospace and Rail
Job Titles

Instrumentation Field Technician
Controls Technician
Measurement Technician
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Technician
Instrumentation & SCADA Support/Operator
Laboratory Technician
Companies

Northern Cables Inc
3M-Brockville
Ontario Power Generating Station (OPG)
Lennox Thermal Generating Station (OPG)
Johnson Controls
Bombardier
Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA)
Queen's University Medical Simulation Lab
Providence Care Hospital
BOJAK Manufacturing
Transformix Engineering
Invista
Kingston Health Sciences Centre
Utilities Kingston
Canadian Royal Milk
LaserDepth Dynamics
Kimco Steel Sales Limited
Ministry of Natural Resources White Lake Fish Hatchery
Siemens Building Technologies, Ltd
St. Lawrence College, Physical Plant
Durham Combustion Inc,
Roseburg Pembroke MDF
Union Gas
Riverside Opticalab Group
HTS Ottawa-Automation
Newterra
IPG Photonics Inc.
Kingston Process Metallurgy
Witron Group