Industrial Networking Labs — Amatrol Skill Boss Logistics

The Amatrol Skill Boss Logistics (95-MSB3) is an industrial trainer — conveyors, VFDs, PLCs — and Amatrol authored the lab curriculum that ships with it. My contribution was getting the trainer into an IT program in the first place, and then building on top of it so students see how networking, security and AI actually show up on a factory floor rather than in a diagram.

The six-lab sequence runs from system orientation to VFD/PLC network configuration, each lab building on the output of the one before it, so students connect what the physical system does to what they see on the network.

What I added to Amatrol’s curriculum:

• Tools: Wireshark, Advanced IP Scanner, draw.io, FaultPro, Studio 5000, RSLinx Classic
• Managed switch station: A self-paced lab on the trainer’s Allen-Bradley Stratix 1783-LMS5 switch (ports, VLANs, IP addressing, Device Manager). Returning students serve as lead techs for new students.
• AI extensions: Labs that onboard AI devices to the trainer’s network as managed assets, with student handouts, deliverables, and rubrics.

Getting the trainer running took some troubleshooting of its own: how I traced a FaultPro “login failed” error to a misnamed database.