Instrumentation Lab

Instrumentation & Automation Engineering Technology

The Program

Instrumentation Automation (IA) and Industrial Controls (IC) is a general electrical automation and process control program that has served industry for 50 years. Its mission is to provide Electrical and Instrumentation (E&I) training for students, technicians and engineers in automation and control.

Technicians and engineers need to keep current on software and new devices to best serve the industry in which they work. When a plant is down it can cost $10,000 a minute. Using prints and test equipment to troubleshoot is one of their most important roles.

IA and IC graduates work in nuclear research, food, mining, paper, space, chemical, power, oil and gas, manufacturing, construction, utilities, defense, security, equipment vendor, medical, and other industries.

Salaries and Job Placement

Degreed Programs Offered

Advanced Technical Certificate

Associate of Applied Science Degree *

* All AAS degrees will articulate into the Bachelor of Applied Technology.

Program Information (pdf)

Program begins in August and January
Program length is 4 semesters pluse a 4 week summer class
Typical classroom hours are from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., 5 days per week

Book and Tool List

Registration Fees

Fees apply to the current Idaho State University fee schedule which includes mandatory student health insurance.

Paying for College

You may apply for financial aid, scholarships, grants, and loans to help finance your college education. When you pay registration fees, you are a student of Idaho State University with the privileges and responsibilities of a college student.

Career Opportunities

Many major companies recruit from the Instrumentation program. Following are just a few of them.

National Labs
The program is the primary source of technicians at a number of Idaho National Lab sites. Recently four graduates are in the INL Material Fuels Complex (MFC) and a total of 50 % of MFC Technicians are graduates of the ISU Instrumentation Automation. In addition, 67% of Advance Test Reactor (ATR) Technicians are from ISU Instrumentation Automation. Other national labs hiring ISU IA graduates include the Sandia facility in Albuquerque, NM, Bechtel, and Lawrence Livermore in Los Alamos, CA.
Food Industry
Food companies such as Heinz, Simplot, Lamb Weston, Amalgamated Sugar, and Jerome Cheese hire graduates of the ISU IA program. Sixty-seven percent of Heinz Electrical & Automation Technicians are from ISU Instrumentation Automation.
Chemical Industry
Seventy percent of Simplot’s Electrical & Instrument department is ISU IA graduates. Monsanto, Agrium, General Chemical, and OCI also hire.
Power Companies
Four Instrumentation Automation graduates are in their technical apprenticeships with Idaho Power, three recently started with Constellation. DTE Energy, Nevada Power, Pacific Power and other power facilities hire from the program.
Natural Gas and Petroleum Companies
Companies like Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Williams, Kinder Morgan, and Alyeska Pipeline hire ISU IA graduates.
Mining Industry
ISU IA graduates are employed at Thompson Creek Idaho, Still Water Platinum operation in Montana, Newmont, Barrick, and Battle Mountain gold operations in Nevada, Fairbanks Gold (Ft Knox) in Alaska, Trona operations in Wyoming, and others.
Manufacturing facilities
IA graduates are employed at ATK building space shuttle engines, INOVAR, Campbell Scientific, Varian, Clear Water Paper, Intel, Micron, ON and others.

Advancement

IA Graduates are found in all levels of management and engineering: supervisors; presidents of their own companies; engineers that design complete control systems. There are plenty of opportunities for advancement. Most employers will assist with education costs as they prepare candidates for management roles.

International recognition

ISU IA was selected as one of ten University programs in the US to pilot the Control Systems Certification Testing (a journeyman exam). Videos of the lab are used for training in over 100 countries. Graduates have traveled to over 50 countries with the skills and training they acquired while in the program.

Partnerships

Over sixty companies nationwide participate in cooperative training/student internships. Students travel to New York, Arizona, Alaska, Seattle, etc. Intern hosts frequently hire participants. The same employers provide significant equipment and cash donations to assist IA program development.

Industrial Training

Engineering and technical teams, maintenance crews and individuals come to the ISU IA program for skill upgrades. Recently three INL NRF engineering and technical teams completed one week courses in PLC programming with ISU’s IA program. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company completed two weeks of ISU Instrumentation Automation training at Valdez, Alaska. Newmont Gold is seeking ISU IA training for Ghana Africa.

Skills

The Instrumentation Automation and Industrial Controls Program provides core skills for all industries. Skills include three phase electrical motor control, variable frequency drives(VFD’s), sensors, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC’s), robotics, temperature, pressure, level, and flow devices, PID loops, human machine interfaces (HMI) and others. IA technicians are the physicians of industry where trouble shooting and efficiency matters.

50 Year Anniversary

Serving Idaho industry for fifty years, Instrumentation Automation has a long history supporting industrial startups, plant maintenance, and skill upgrades. Industry examples include nuclear research, food, power, paper, chemical, mining, manufacturing, utilities, and others. A visit to most any local industry will find technicians, engineers, and supervisors that got their start at ISU’s Instrumentation Automation and Industrial Controls Program.