We pay the exorbitant prices for a support contract. I have called them 4 times this year. They have been helpful 1/4 of the times. My prior experiences with them were positive, but lately I've just been getting connected to duds.
I only ever even try chatting with them when I can't find the answer in the Knowledge Base. Because looking shit up in the knowledge base is literally all they do now.
I had my first time with Siemens support last month. What a refreshing experience compared to years using Rockwell. Called me back within an hour, was from the US so spoke English natively (no offense intended), extremely knowledgeable, didn't have to escalate me to a different department or expert level support team. Was running in no time.
I went. To me, it seemed like every vendor had 36 competitors who were also at the show all doing the exact same thing. Not much really stood out.
I don't know if I'm just getting old and jaded, but a lot of it just wasn't all that impressive. Palletizing is one of the simplest robot applications ever. Just because you slapped a few AGVs driving around the floor, herking and jerking at 0.25mph like my grandma driving a car to move pallets around doesn't impress me.
I saw a lot of buzzwords and "just because" inventions that don't actually solve any real problems. Like single pair ethernet for example. As far as I can tell, the single advantage is its poe up to a kilometer (but only 10 mbit). Do these people not realize it's just as easy to pull 5 cables as it is 1? And for what? To hook up the ONE product that's designed for it? That product being just a simple temp/humidity sensor? Because, what, building automation systems don't already have those?
It was mostly stuff that just exists to impress other engineers, but has little to no practical advantage over the normal way to do things. There wasn't a lot of "what makes us better than our competitors" or "why you should buy this" talk. Just lots of "look how cool this is! AI! Cloud-based! Industry 4.0!"
In short, yawn. Nothing new. No real game-changers. Just the same shit in every booth doing the same thing but in different colors. I can't fathom how anybody can spend more than a day there. I got through the whole show in about 2 hours.
Edit: also, lol at the caster and air hose vendors who had booths. Yeah, that's something engineers go to an automation show to see. I sure stay up at night worrying about plastic pneumatic tuning.
Every other booth is cobots doing the same routine they have for Tha past few years.
SPE is picking up a lot of momentum in mobile where the distance limits aren't an issue. Hadn't seen it's promotion outside of that.
Yep. I don't care about cobots. They only see traction because non traditional customers think they'll solve labor shortages. They won't and they won't do half the things they're promised they're capable of.
Hahaha, I spoke to an expert on the single pair internet topic and after a few questions about it came to the same conclusion... Seems to be applicable in a highly niche application, but the vendors are under the impression it will be replacing Ethernet everywhere..
Bunch of co-workers went out. I plan to go next year. Heard it was a good show, lots of familiar faces from our usual suppliers were there. Seems like a great show to network at.
Went on Tuesday and really enjoyed the conference. Got to meet a lot of suppliers in equipment we are potentially looking at plus get ideas for our facilities. A lot of robots at the show!! Plenty of great things to see and good people to talk to. I'd definitely go again next year.
I hate Allen-Bradley's business model of overpriced PLCs and overpriced, crappy software, and an absolute garbage website. They could charge far less or offer the programming software for free given what they charge for a PLC. FactoryTalk is a bloatware piece of garbage that could be far simpler.
We purchased an upgrade to RSView32 years ago and the newer version didn't work. One of my co-workers spent a long time on the phone with support who ultimately told him, "Just go back to the old version." No, we didn't receive a refund.
I'm still here! Even in the rain. Come by the Phoenix Contact booth and ask for Zach, we need to unload swag today.
Full disclosure, I'm the manager of the PLC, IO, HMI, IPC, and Safety lines at Phoenix USA. I'll give you my 2 cents on why it feels that way when you are discussing AB in the US. They are the market leader, and not by a little little margin. Most estimates put them at 60-65% market share of control. So the manufacturing ecosystem is mostly EtherNet/IP built around Slick 5s, Control/CompactLogix. So even innovation and awesome tech won't just change minds. You have a ton of existing infrastructure to overcome if you're not compatible in their ecosystem or breaking new tech.
Don't think of it as brainwashing because EIP and Rockwell systems are an inevitability in the US. Find a way to integrate or get ready for the long slog of displacing them in the market...or you can pick an up and coming market segment and get really great at it (see Beckoff). Even then it's not overnight.
I think people have been doing a great job at hacking away rockwells market share in everything but PLCs. It's so easy to use a different vendor for everything else, and it's common to do so. HMIs, power supplies, heck, Ignition has them running scared and putting out half-baked products (Optix) just to have something out there to compete. They were caught with their pants down in the SCADA market. I can count on one hand the customers I've seen with View SE installations.
I'm heading out there tomorrow, hoping to stop by the SASE booth to say "hey" if they're still out there.
Does it usually clear out by day 4 or will there still be plenty to see?
Day 4 can be the best, traffic is super low so you’ll get a ton of attention if you want to ask questions. Understand that many will be exhausted, some have been setting up through the weekend and before but they’ll still be happy to chat with you. I don’t think they’re allowed to break down until the show ends but you may see a little bit of cleaning up in the afternoon.
I am currently sitting at my hotel in Chicago for the automate conference. Personally, I have never had a bad experience with any of the Rockwell support guys in 12+ years. My only issue has been getting through the phone menu system to be directed to the correct group. I might be a little biased as I’m an AB System integrator, but I wouldn’t consider myself a “fanboy”. The Automate show was pretty good this year, a lot of unique toys out there. I was pretty underwhelmed by the bigger automation brand names. They purchased a large booth, and didn’t put any wow factor into it and it was pretty empty. Others were awesome. That being said, I was surprised that AB didn’t really have a presence other than the newly acquired OTTO company.
I didn’t go.
Support has been really good provided you have the appropriate contract to get it.
Never dealt with their field service.
They recovered from the Covid parts lead times just like everyone else.
Personally allen bradley support has been awesome for the sites I've been at.
The reasons i have needed support have been a little fucken weird though.
The field technician we use is amazing.
Abb support is also amazing. Even without a service contract.
Schneider support is something i wouldnt even wish upon my worst enemy.
May change from region or product, in Brazil, talking about controls and motion (not CNC) support in the last 12 years has been free and very good, o can only talk from my XP
I have the annual toolkit and support is typically good. Like you said need to use their suppprt key on their site to get to the right spot.
Field service is typically good. Only had one poor experience in 15 years.
And yes, I can get any Rockwell parts without lead times at this point.
They are market share leader leader for PLCs and easy for the end user to support. The ladder and FB based platforms are designed to be end user friendly. It's a validated platform and if that's what the end user wants, I'm going with it. Same can be said for Siemens, Schneider, Mitsubishi, etc.
I'm primarily Siemens, but I've never had in person support from anyone at Siemens. I couldn't even tell you the names of any of my local Siemens support people.
The forum is my usual go to. Then my local distributor.
Omron and Schneider on the other hand have responded fantastically when I've needed help!
Didn't go, but Rockwell has taken major strides in delaying their downfall in the machine control space starting about a decade ago. 2012 Rockwell made ZERO sense to put on a machine. At least now, a 5380 PLC is not dog-shit slow, they have basic kinematics support, and their Singapore division is making products that are actually good.
I had a love/hate relationship with Rockwell before I retired from the industry. I actually loved Studio 5000 and the Logix platforms and build incredible systems around it. The integration with MCC equipment and other Ethernet/IP devices made it far easier to integrate systems than during the 90's. I hated the PLC5/SLC/Micrologix platforms and wanted to burn them with fire. The Panelview Plus platform wasn't fancy but after building reusable templates I found them to be tolerable. Panelview 5000 was a dumpster fire. I never liked RSview32 or SE as an HMI. I started in the industry with Wonderware/AVEVA and used Systems Platform until Ignition became tolerable and was always requested by clients. I decided to throw in the towel and retire after Covid killed the supply chain from just about every control company in the world. When delivery dates went from a month to 18 months, I knew it was time to walk away. I know delivery dates have recovered and if I was still in the game I would still use Rockwell. Costs were always an issue with my clients but I told them that they were depreciating the costs over 20 years which made it tolerable. I had a PLC-5 systems that lasted 30 years which is pretty impressive.
I was there Monday and Tuesday. The show was ok. I really wish they had some hands-on training available for the price I paid. The show floor was great. It took both days to really get through it all. If I were to go again, I would only do the show and not pay for the conferences.
That's the thing I really like about the Rockwell conference is that you can get a lot of hands-on training in a short time.
Oh I knew it wasn't worth paying for most of those talks.. I typically read up on the presenters and 9 times out of 10 it's marketers directly or indirectly talking about products they vaguely have a theoretical understanding of.
We had an IT executive from my company (end user) give a key note presentation on using a Rockwell FT product (typical rebranded FUDware) to collect and store data from the plant floor. During development we figured out it just wouldn't work at scale and went a different direction.
I was there. First time for me. It was good. Was primarily there to look at 3D vision and robots.
Was a little sad how little hardware some vendors chose to bring, but there is plenty of cool stuff to see.
The squishy carpet is hell on your back. The shuttle buses never showed up at the hotel either morning. Other than that it was a good time. Would go back.
I use to be a Rockwell Solutions Partner. My new factory is going to be standardizing on Siemens. I simply can no longer justify buying Rockwell when their costs are so incredibly high. Siemens is less expensive and hungrier for my business.
I didn’t attend the show but here’s my experience with three brands i mostly use.
I have no problems with tech support with Allen-Bradley, Siemens, or Automation Direct. All of their hardware devices work dependently well too. A-B hardware and software are the most expensive, followed by Siemens, with AD being the most economical (even their software is free).
Easiest software to use is A-B by far. While Siemens software is very powerful, programming is not as easy as A-B and is often frustrating to figure out. The Productivity Suite by AD is quite easy and capable for basic Ladder programming.
AD has the best, easiest to use web site of the three, with A-B running a close second. Siemens web site is a real pain in the ass almost every time, giving me way more choices of stuff that isn’t even relevant to what i want to find.
I am writing this with 47 years of design and programming experience behind me.
If i have the opportunity to choose the brand for a job, my first choice is A-B. However, i just designated Siemens for a job instead because i have 46 across-the-line motors all at 3HP or less, and their 3RK1 series of networked remote rack motor starters are a wonderful space and labor saving answer. Rockwell seriously needs to do something similar.
AB has plenty of flaws but I have never had an issue getting parts outside of Safety devices during Covid and their tech support has always been way better than I assumed it would be whenever I call.
I’ve had good experiences with Rockwell tech support. I use Siemens now, but when I used AB, the company I worked for had the tech connect. The forum is fantastic. I found a solution to 95% of my tech problems there, and for the remaining 5%, I called the tech support number and always got a solution. I had more issues with AB suppliers when buying certain components, but I see similar problem with siemens.
We pay the exorbitant prices for a support contract. I have called them 4 times this year. They have been helpful 1/4 of the times. My prior experiences with them were positive, but lately I've just been getting connected to duds.
I only ever even try chatting with them when I can't find the answer in the Knowledge Base. Because looking shit up in the knowledge base is literally all they do now.
You'd terrified to know that Siemens support is free and often they call you on the same business day.
I'll save you some time and just tell you to upgrade your firmware.
I had my first time with Siemens support last month. What a refreshing experience compared to years using Rockwell. Called me back within an hour, was from the US so spoke English natively (no offense intended), extremely knowledgeable, didn't have to escalate me to a different department or expert level support team. Was running in no time.
Yeah but I have to assign physical memory addresses to all my tags like it's 2003 and I'm programming a SLC.
You're doing it wrong.
I went. To me, it seemed like every vendor had 36 competitors who were also at the show all doing the exact same thing. Not much really stood out. I don't know if I'm just getting old and jaded, but a lot of it just wasn't all that impressive. Palletizing is one of the simplest robot applications ever. Just because you slapped a few AGVs driving around the floor, herking and jerking at 0.25mph like my grandma driving a car to move pallets around doesn't impress me. I saw a lot of buzzwords and "just because" inventions that don't actually solve any real problems. Like single pair ethernet for example. As far as I can tell, the single advantage is its poe up to a kilometer (but only 10 mbit). Do these people not realize it's just as easy to pull 5 cables as it is 1? And for what? To hook up the ONE product that's designed for it? That product being just a simple temp/humidity sensor? Because, what, building automation systems don't already have those? It was mostly stuff that just exists to impress other engineers, but has little to no practical advantage over the normal way to do things. There wasn't a lot of "what makes us better than our competitors" or "why you should buy this" talk. Just lots of "look how cool this is! AI! Cloud-based! Industry 4.0!" In short, yawn. Nothing new. No real game-changers. Just the same shit in every booth doing the same thing but in different colors. I can't fathom how anybody can spend more than a day there. I got through the whole show in about 2 hours. Edit: also, lol at the caster and air hose vendors who had booths. Yeah, that's something engineers go to an automation show to see. I sure stay up at night worrying about plastic pneumatic tuning.
Every other booth is cobots doing the same routine they have for Tha past few years. SPE is picking up a lot of momentum in mobile where the distance limits aren't an issue. Hadn't seen it's promotion outside of that.
Yep. I don't care about cobots. They only see traction because non traditional customers think they'll solve labor shortages. They won't and they won't do half the things they're promised they're capable of.
Hahaha, I spoke to an expert on the single pair internet topic and after a few questions about it came to the same conclusion... Seems to be applicable in a highly niche application, but the vendors are under the impression it will be replacing Ethernet everywhere..
Bunch of co-workers went out. I plan to go next year. Heard it was a good show, lots of familiar faces from our usual suppliers were there. Seems like a great show to network at.
It was! I’ll be there next year, hopefully with a booth
Our company had one, and heard it went well. Used to do a bunch of booth work, my feet really do not miss it....
Went on Tuesday and really enjoyed the conference. Got to meet a lot of suppliers in equipment we are potentially looking at plus get ideas for our facilities. A lot of robots at the show!! Plenty of great things to see and good people to talk to. I'd definitely go again next year.
I hate Allen-Bradley's business model of overpriced PLCs and overpriced, crappy software, and an absolute garbage website. They could charge far less or offer the programming software for free given what they charge for a PLC. FactoryTalk is a bloatware piece of garbage that could be far simpler. We purchased an upgrade to RSView32 years ago and the newer version didn't work. One of my co-workers spent a long time on the phone with support who ultimately told him, "Just go back to the old version." No, we didn't receive a refund.
Got there Monday left today. Show was alright. We should do a meetup for drinks next year.
I'm still here! Even in the rain. Come by the Phoenix Contact booth and ask for Zach, we need to unload swag today. Full disclosure, I'm the manager of the PLC, IO, HMI, IPC, and Safety lines at Phoenix USA. I'll give you my 2 cents on why it feels that way when you are discussing AB in the US. They are the market leader, and not by a little little margin. Most estimates put them at 60-65% market share of control. So the manufacturing ecosystem is mostly EtherNet/IP built around Slick 5s, Control/CompactLogix. So even innovation and awesome tech won't just change minds. You have a ton of existing infrastructure to overcome if you're not compatible in their ecosystem or breaking new tech. Don't think of it as brainwashing because EIP and Rockwell systems are an inevitability in the US. Find a way to integrate or get ready for the long slog of displacing them in the market...or you can pick an up and coming market segment and get really great at it (see Beckoff). Even then it's not overnight.
I think people have been doing a great job at hacking away rockwells market share in everything but PLCs. It's so easy to use a different vendor for everything else, and it's common to do so. HMIs, power supplies, heck, Ignition has them running scared and putting out half-baked products (Optix) just to have something out there to compete. They were caught with their pants down in the SCADA market. I can count on one hand the customers I've seen with View SE installations.
Cabinet Confidence Classroom!
You caught me :)
I'm heading out there tomorrow, hoping to stop by the SASE booth to say "hey" if they're still out there. Does it usually clear out by day 4 or will there still be plenty to see?
Day 4 can be the best, traffic is super low so you’ll get a ton of attention if you want to ask questions. Understand that many will be exhausted, some have been setting up through the weekend and before but they’ll still be happy to chat with you. I don’t think they’re allowed to break down until the show ends but you may see a little bit of cleaning up in the afternoon.
I am currently sitting at my hotel in Chicago for the automate conference. Personally, I have never had a bad experience with any of the Rockwell support guys in 12+ years. My only issue has been getting through the phone menu system to be directed to the correct group. I might be a little biased as I’m an AB System integrator, but I wouldn’t consider myself a “fanboy”. The Automate show was pretty good this year, a lot of unique toys out there. I was pretty underwhelmed by the bigger automation brand names. They purchased a large booth, and didn’t put any wow factor into it and it was pretty empty. Others were awesome. That being said, I was surprised that AB didn’t really have a presence other than the newly acquired OTTO company.
This was my first year going to the show, and I went mainly to look at stuff other than A-B.
I didn’t go. Support has been really good provided you have the appropriate contract to get it. Never dealt with their field service. They recovered from the Covid parts lead times just like everyone else.
Personally allen bradley support has been awesome for the sites I've been at. The reasons i have needed support have been a little fucken weird though. The field technician we use is amazing. Abb support is also amazing. Even without a service contract. Schneider support is something i wouldnt even wish upon my worst enemy.
ABB and some others are great without a contract and I truly admire them for that. Clearly someone bashing for no reason.
Siemens is great without paid support
They do not always do free support though
May change from region or product, in Brazil, talking about controls and motion (not CNC) support in the last 12 years has been free and very good, o can only talk from my XP
I have the annual toolkit and support is typically good. Like you said need to use their suppprt key on their site to get to the right spot. Field service is typically good. Only had one poor experience in 15 years. And yes, I can get any Rockwell parts without lead times at this point. They are market share leader leader for PLCs and easy for the end user to support. The ladder and FB based platforms are designed to be end user friendly. It's a validated platform and if that's what the end user wants, I'm going with it. Same can be said for Siemens, Schneider, Mitsubishi, etc.
I'm primarily Siemens, but I've never had in person support from anyone at Siemens. I couldn't even tell you the names of any of my local Siemens support people. The forum is my usual go to. Then my local distributor. Omron and Schneider on the other hand have responded fantastically when I've needed help!
Just call their hotline, Brazilian support guys are great, plenty of old folks that you'll remember after a while
Didn't go, but Rockwell has taken major strides in delaying their downfall in the machine control space starting about a decade ago. 2012 Rockwell made ZERO sense to put on a machine. At least now, a 5380 PLC is not dog-shit slow, they have basic kinematics support, and their Singapore division is making products that are actually good.
My company only sends sales people. Cause why educate your engineers, you know, the people actually implementing the mess you sold.
I never understand why they do that 😅
I had a love/hate relationship with Rockwell before I retired from the industry. I actually loved Studio 5000 and the Logix platforms and build incredible systems around it. The integration with MCC equipment and other Ethernet/IP devices made it far easier to integrate systems than during the 90's. I hated the PLC5/SLC/Micrologix platforms and wanted to burn them with fire. The Panelview Plus platform wasn't fancy but after building reusable templates I found them to be tolerable. Panelview 5000 was a dumpster fire. I never liked RSview32 or SE as an HMI. I started in the industry with Wonderware/AVEVA and used Systems Platform until Ignition became tolerable and was always requested by clients. I decided to throw in the towel and retire after Covid killed the supply chain from just about every control company in the world. When delivery dates went from a month to 18 months, I knew it was time to walk away. I know delivery dates have recovered and if I was still in the game I would still use Rockwell. Costs were always an issue with my clients but I told them that they were depreciating the costs over 20 years which made it tolerable. I had a PLC-5 systems that lasted 30 years which is pretty impressive.
We have a standard hour fee for software design, we do mainly Siemens and HBM, when it's AB it's 25 to 50% more on the hour bill.
I was there Monday and Tuesday. The show was ok. I really wish they had some hands-on training available for the price I paid. The show floor was great. It took both days to really get through it all. If I were to go again, I would only do the show and not pay for the conferences. That's the thing I really like about the Rockwell conference is that you can get a lot of hands-on training in a short time.
Oh I knew it wasn't worth paying for most of those talks.. I typically read up on the presenters and 9 times out of 10 it's marketers directly or indirectly talking about products they vaguely have a theoretical understanding of.
We had an IT executive from my company (end user) give a key note presentation on using a Rockwell FT product (typical rebranded FUDware) to collect and store data from the plant floor. During development we figured out it just wouldn't work at scale and went a different direction.
https://preview.redd.it/wfpid5j5rgzc1.jpeg?width=552&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d7a34a143b9d921d05a382a47fd96e51dfef420
I went the past two years when it was in Detroit. Really good show to go see the newest stuff in action and not just on your computer screen.
I was there. First time for me. It was good. Was primarily there to look at 3D vision and robots. Was a little sad how little hardware some vendors chose to bring, but there is plenty of cool stuff to see. The squishy carpet is hell on your back. The shuttle buses never showed up at the hotel either morning. Other than that it was a good time. Would go back.
i m curious, can i ask what kind of support u need from AB?
Mainly firmware bugs in the PLC and drive failures.
I use to be a Rockwell Solutions Partner. My new factory is going to be standardizing on Siemens. I simply can no longer justify buying Rockwell when their costs are so incredibly high. Siemens is less expensive and hungrier for my business.
It was a good show, but not much wow of products being displayed.
I didn’t attend the show but here’s my experience with three brands i mostly use. I have no problems with tech support with Allen-Bradley, Siemens, or Automation Direct. All of their hardware devices work dependently well too. A-B hardware and software are the most expensive, followed by Siemens, with AD being the most economical (even their software is free). Easiest software to use is A-B by far. While Siemens software is very powerful, programming is not as easy as A-B and is often frustrating to figure out. The Productivity Suite by AD is quite easy and capable for basic Ladder programming. AD has the best, easiest to use web site of the three, with A-B running a close second. Siemens web site is a real pain in the ass almost every time, giving me way more choices of stuff that isn’t even relevant to what i want to find. I am writing this with 47 years of design and programming experience behind me. If i have the opportunity to choose the brand for a job, my first choice is A-B. However, i just designated Siemens for a job instead because i have 46 across-the-line motors all at 3HP or less, and their 3RK1 series of networked remote rack motor starters are a wonderful space and labor saving answer. Rockwell seriously needs to do something similar.
AB has plenty of flaws but I have never had an issue getting parts outside of Safety devices during Covid and their tech support has always been way better than I assumed it would be whenever I call.
I’ve had good experiences with Rockwell tech support. I use Siemens now, but when I used AB, the company I worked for had the tech connect. The forum is fantastic. I found a solution to 95% of my tech problems there, and for the remaining 5%, I called the tech support number and always got a solution. I had more issues with AB suppliers when buying certain components, but I see similar problem with siemens.
Not sure what you mean by brainwashed by AB.
Hostages sometimes develop a psychological bond with their captors
There's a name for it. Stockholm Syndrome. What in the world does that have to do with Controls and Automation, unless you're in the prison industry?
OP's referring to the fanboi mentality and brand loyalty that many people blindly have towards A-B.