Why does Siemens have to be such a *****?

[HJTRBO]

Technicians and tradesmen tend to be knowledgeable, think for themselves, and expect to be given a lot of authority on programming etc. Suppliers are expected to defer to the end users superior application knowledge.

And these are my experiences as a Kiwi working in Australia. But not all companies allow this I have found. It is now one of the questions I ask at interviews to prospective employers... "I have proven myself to previous employers that I work at a higher technical level than regular sparkies, will I have full access to your automation systems and networks for fault finding and continuous improvement projects?"
I have recieved a no before on 1 occasion as the engineer held the keys to the guard house. No fun for me so no acceptance of job offer for you! Most of them say it will be authorised modifcations only. No problem with that at all. Scored a lot of SCADA mods out of being supervised in the engineering office, plus I have to think about each mod and write a small FD for proposed works. Mini-me engineer! Makes the other Sparkies a little suprised at what I can do now!

 

[rQx]

Is this the current Siemens vs AB bashing thread? Because I have so many bad things to say about AB (Rockwell) that I can't even descide where to start

 

[krk]

Is this the current Siemens vs AB bashing thread?

Yup...looks like it.

Regular as clockwork.

 

[Mike_RH]

Which side of the fence, needs help?
I can happily argue against / for either platform all day!
The only important question is who has the beer?

 

[Wilso]

And these are my experiences as a Kiwi working in Australia. But not all companies allow this I have found. It is now one of the questions I ask at interviews to prospective employers... "I have proven myself to previous employers that I work at a higher technical level than regular sparkies, will I have full access to your automation systems and networks for fault finding and continuous improvement projects?"
I have recieved a no before on 1 occasion as the engineer held the keys to the guard house. No fun for me so no acceptance of job offer for you! Most of them say it will be authorised modifcations only. No problem with that at all. Scored a lot of SCADA mods out of being supervised in the engineering office, plus I have to think about each mod and write a small FD for proposed works. Mini-me engineer! Makes the other Sparkies a little suprised at what I can do now!

Running into protection of knowledge. People think they can't be removed or replaced if they're the only ones can perform certain tasks. Used to get a lot of that at my previous employer. Can drive you nuts.

 

[allscott]

Running into protection of knowledge. People think they can't be removed or replaced if they're the only ones can perform certain tasks. Used to get a lot of that at my previous employer. Can drive you nuts.

I agree and I have been there. Now that I am the holder of most of the knowledge around here I share as much of it as I can whenever I can. It means less phone calls when I am not here and because I don't get paid for calls the less the better.

As far as the Siemens aspect goes for me I absolutely hate them. Not because they are a bad product but because my exposure to them is only when something goes wrong and I have never found anything Siemens that is the least bit intuitive to me. The support and service in North America isn't great either which doesn't help. A wise old electrician once told me "Siemens support here isn't bad, there just isn't any. You can't say they have bad technical support when they don't have any at all".

As far as German products in general I have dealt with lots and my biggest beef has always been that nothing built in Germany was ever designed to be worked on or serviced easily. They make great products and have brilliant Engineering but they seem to have the attitude that they have Engineered and built their products so well that nobody is ever going to have to work on them again. Sounds great except I am the guy that 10 years later is lying on my back in a puddle of muck trying to work on a junction box that is stuffed with way too much wire sticking my meter in terminal blocks that are 3 levels deep. It is at that point that my love and respect for German Engineering is not what people hear me conveying from under a machine.

 

[PLC]

Wow
I will take a slice of cheese with that whine

In the next post you will be complaining about a junction box being too large

 

[cjd1965]

Wow
I will take a slice of cheese with that whine

Love the expression.. must use that one day

 

[Wilso]

Wow
I will take a slice of cheese with that whine

In the next post you will be complaining about a junction box being too large

You should try being in Australia where you're 12 000 miles away from everywhere. There's not necessarily an expert just down the road.

 

[Geospark]

Just to stir the pot...

Allen Bradley v SIEMENS...a thinly veiled America v Germany?

"Germany Envy..."

G.

 

[JesperMP]

You should try being in Australia where you're 12 000 miles away from everywhere.

12000 miles, thats to the other side of the globe. So that means there is a spot called "everywhere" !

 

[LadderLogic]

Allen Bradley v SIEMENS...a thinly veiled America v Germany?

Well, actually no. It is just a sign there is no PLC brand evryone is happy about. In other words, they both suck, each in its own way.

 

[LadderLogic]

that means there is a spot called "everywhere" !

It is still one huge outback...

 

[allscott]

Wow
I will take a slice of cheese with that whine

In the next post you will be complaining about a junction box being too large

Can't say I've ever been in one that was too large, I've seen a few that were unnecessarily large but never anything to complain about.

If you have never been in one too small it's obvious that you have never worked in the real world and should try to get out of your office occasionally.

 

[PeterW]

Can't say I've ever been in one that was too large, I've seen a few that were unnecessarily large but never anything to complain about.

If you have never been in one too small it's obvious that you have never worked in the real world and should try to get out of your office occasionally.

I can see his point though, the machine you had was from a specific supplier and through that seem to criticize German equipment as a whole.

In the 1980's I worked for Heinz in London and we had a couple of Pasta manufacturing machines from a Company in New York. The had used 3 deep terminals (very good terminals if you use them properly, top = signal, middle = 24VDC, bottom = common), except they didn't, all three levels were signals, making it impossible to fault find.

One shutdown was spent replacing all the terminals.

Does that mean all American manufactured panels are ****? Doubt it myself.