Consign LLC - An interview with Consign's Brian Ondrey By: Ryan S.
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Foreword: Consign LLC has been involved with the amusement industry for about 20 years, designing ride systems for new and old rides. You can learn much more about Consign LLC by visiting their website
at: http://www.consignllc.com.
Brian Ondrey became a member of Consign LLC in 1998, and has worked on noteworthy projects such as Air (Bolliger & Mabillard's first Flyer), Apollo's Chariot, the opening of Island's of Adventure, SheiKra, and many more. Currently, Brian's involvement is with Tatsu, at Six Flags Magic Mountain. This interview with Brian Ondrey has been unedited and we would like to extend our gratitude to those at Consign LLC for making this interview possible.
RollerCoasterPro.com: First off, RCPro would like to thank you for donating your valuable time to us in order to gain a much greater understanding of what Consign LLC does. To begin, could you please tell us a little about yourself, your background in the industry, and your job at Consign LLC?
Brian Ondrey: Well as for myself, I probably started out just like many of you. I’ve always loved parks and roller coasters. For me, there was something special about them, but it wasn’t until I worked at Kennywood for three summers that I realized what it was. Here was an industry which grew up around the idea of giving people a place where they can relax and let go of whatever might be bothering them, even if only for a few minutes. That pretty much did it for me and I knew I had to be a part of things.
I was fortunate enough to be hired from my former job of working on controls for steel mills in February 1998 by Consign. I had sent my resume to many of the manufacturing companies along with a personal letter asking for advice on how to get my foot in the door. It was actually Great Coasters who called me and passed my resume onto Consign and things went from there. I do remember the not so small shock that hit when my now coworker, John mentioned casually on the phone that they worked with another company by the name of Bolliger and Mabillard. I do remember being very lucky to have not dropped the phone at that point. Can you imagine the shock of hearing that you now might have the possibility of working with the greatest steel coaster designers in the industry today?
From that point, I went to Baltimore for an interview and was hired that very day. What truly did help me I found out later, was that I had so much knowledge of not only the industry and companies in it, but also of what type of work Consign performed. Two weeks later I was living in Baltimore and getting ready to go to Kentucky Kingdom on my first assignment.
As for what I do, generally you name it. Being a small company, you need to be able to do every job, from designing the creating the initial CAD drawings to manual writing to PLC coding. For a typical project, we start with drawings from the manufacturers. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see everything of the layout usually, but the top down view gives me enough to get excited about. There are a lot of decisions to make from an engineering standpoint on the type of equipment to use, power requirements for all of the equipment, and laying out all of this equipment in control cabinets. We do all of that work in CAD and excel spreadsheets along with complete diagrams for electricians on wiring the ride.
The other major task is writing the ladder logic code for the processors. This is probably what I love the most due to the various challenges to it. In my work day, I have questions to answer such as how to move four trains safely, determining better ways to calculate how to slow the trains in brake runs, or if there is anything I can do to add excitement to the ride. Included in this is also designing the operator panels and touch screens that are used by the operators. It’s thrilling to know that the work I’ve done is seen daily by operators and guests around the world and even more so to have such a tangible impact on a roller coaster.
RCPro: In terms of new rollercoaster’s, what roll does Consign LLC play in constructing the ride (assuming we have common mechanical knowledge of how a rollercoaster operates)? At which point of construction do you come in and when do you finish?
B.O.: We come into the picture about a year before opening. At that point we are bidding on designing the electrical portion of the ride. For the most part it is our job to either finalize or decide what sensors and controls for motors and brakes are needed. Once all of the parts are decided on, we design control cabinets to hold all of the electrical equipment needed and drawings showing all of the wiring throughout the ride.
Of course everything we design needs tested and so the fun part comes in when we travel to site usually about a month or so before opening. Okie, its not ALWAYS fun since it also means working seven days a week and very often over 8 hours a day. When we get there, we begin by checking that everything is installed where it should be and that all of the wiring done by the electricians is correct. Every pushbutton, sensor, motor, solenoid, etc. is checked to be working and giving the proper signals. Of course this can also be happening in rain, snow, freezing weather, no lights in the control room, mud, missing walkways, large ditches, and fresh paint everywhere. Hardhats are definitely a must and I’ve found myself unfortunately painted several times.
Next has to be one of the best parts of the job….being there for the very first run ever of a brand new roller coaster. It’s a tense time for both us and the manufacturer as everything must be just right and all eyes are on you. If the lift stops or a motor doesn’t turn when expected, everyone looks to you for answers and fast. But the moment a coaster makes it back to the brake run is always one to cherish and is definitely something special.
Once the celebrations have died down though, the majority of our work begins. Every ride function has to be tested along with a battery of safety checks. Most people think the ride is about ready when they see it running, but often there’s about another full two weeks of work still left to do. Most of this work is also done during unusual hours since there’s still a lot of other work such as landscaping, queue lines, completing the station, etc. Often I have found myself leaving after a day of work at around 3 am or even later.
Lastly beyond the press days and film shoots comes the big day. Even though I can’t breathe a sign of relief just yet, I look forward to this day so much. I absolutely love to sit back at the exit of the ride and watch people’s reactions as they come back into the station. It makes a year of work totally worth it to see people enjoying something that you helped bring to life. If I wasn’t still so nervous opening weekend that everything goes ok, I would have to say it is one of the best and most rewarding feelings in the world.
So for any new ride opening up with one of our systems, you’ll find someone from Consign around babysitting the newest coaster arrival. We are there at least opening weekend if not longer just to make sure everything goes smoothly.
RCPro: Consign LLC links the ride operator with the ride. Please explain how you make this possible.
B.O.: Magic! Well ok, that and the operator panels you see all around the ride. When a pushbutton is pushed, it is nothing more than a circuit being closed. If you have 24VDC on one side of an open pushbutton and the other side connected to the PLC, pressing the button will provide that 24 volts to the PLC. The PLC itself sees 0 volts or 24 volts as a 0 or a 1 when it comes to programming. So really it’s up to whatever the programmer chooses to do with that input in the code.
There are really no differences between the different pushbuttons on a ride. It’s all up to what a programmer chooses to happen when we see the input from that value change, from opening gates, or releasing lapbars, or dispatching a train.
