Am I getting ripped off on my new PLC/HMI install?

I've got a new machine coming in: AB PLC and HMI already set up to show production numbers. They are offering a CSV data file output for a (to me) knucklehead amount of money.

A. What the heck is a CSV data file.

B. If they've already got the register info going to the HMI screen, what the heck extra is the extra cash for to put it in some other file?

CSV is Comma Separated Variables (ASCII) and is a format that Excel and many databases can read data out of. Also known as a flat file.

thanks, jstolaruk, the vendor did mention flat file.
How much trouble is it to pull out register data and put it into CSV?

There are a number of ways to do it. A program can be written for a computer that uses one of the A-B protocols and its associated hardware to request data from the PLC and it will send it back, then the program writes the data to the flat file.

Or, the SLC's serial port can be use to send out CSV data (via logic commands) as if it was writing out to a printer and a PC reads it in its serial port and stores the data into a flat file.

The HMI may be capable of saving data also but it would depend on the brand and type.

My background is hardware side, so I apologize up front if I sound like a moron, but
This would be fairly straightforward? Particularily if this is a large vendor and have probably done something like this before.

I'm talking a stupid amount of money.

Well it all depends.
It's something they've done before, how custom your ap is, how specialized your field is, etc.

It all depends.

You have to remember that when you purchase a feature, you are paying for all of the previous development time and the actual added value of the feature. They have come up with a price that they think they can charge. The actual cost to them may now be minimal, but they have to recover development costs somehow. The alternative for you would be to do it yourself, but I think it would end up costing more in the long run.

Disclaimer: I am looking at this from the perspective of an integrator.

No matter what it costs, you are only getting ripped off if you don't get enough value out of the function to justify it's cost.

Let's assume illogically for a moment that this reporting function took the developer all of 10 minutes to develop. Let's further assume the developer is charging $10,000 for the function. This function will save you $20,000 per year over the 15 year life of the machine. In the greater scheme of things, it doesn't matter that this guy is making $60,000 per hour to develop what looks like a simple function. What matters is he will make you $290,000 with this function.

Its all about payback. If the function can't pay for itself by some method of justification you just don't buy it.

In addition, functions like the one referred to in the original post are usually frosting to most OEMs. If they can get some people to buy it, cool. If not it really is no skin off their nose. Additionally they figure they have a captive audience so they price accordingly.

Keith

What IS the price ?
And what EXACTLY does the additional feature consist of in hardware and software ?

Without the above information, noone can tell you if it is a fair price or not.

From an integrators perspective:
Something may take only half an hour to convert/adapt from a previous job to suit a particular customer. This does not take into account the time it took to originally develop the code, the license fees and software costs, rent and a thousand other things (including the countless hours of study so you can do it in half an hour). The Rockwell software (RS5000) is actually making programming quicker now but I still quote the same hrs because I believe I should benefit from the purchase of the programming software.
Regards Alan Case

Another integrator perspective on quotes - you also have to figure in how many times may think you may get called to come make small changes to the product to satisfy a customers wishes. If I have a long term customer and know they will take ownership and continue the customization of small changes themselves the price is lower than someone I think will want me come out once a week for the next two months because of really small changes like "can you title this column this instead of that".

Thanks all.
Basically, all they are offering is to put the some of the info that's already being sent to my HMI screen into a flat file.
For $15000.

Well, it doesn't sound completely outrageous. If this is something they don't put machines on a regular basis (or if they don't produce many machines per year), then that might be what they have to charge. In this case, you are paying for the expertise.

Sure, it sounds easy, but if it was easy you could get the janitor to do it.

I'm not trying to discount expertise, nor am I trying to nickel and dime these guys.
I just don't want to be the eskimo buying the icemaker.

Well, that might sound a bit high, it might even actually BE a bit high, then again, the HMI is designed natively to communicate through a data-server, to show basically real time information. They are actually pretty poor at recording historical data, in a form that is readable by other software, or even a format that is useful for generating reports and such. That is why many HMI's have additional software packages (or completely seperate programs) that act as a 'Historian' and collect data in a meaningful way.

There are some tricks that can be used, or custom scripting, or additional programs to do the collection into a user-readable format.

Note that the Historian type software is not cheap in itself, and still generally doen't deliver packaged data into a ready to use format.

I generally do several types of data-logging within an HMI...For Wonderware, I use the native historical trend logging to maintain a raw, InTouch readable, log of line data. I also use the SQL Access extensions, and custom scripting to write production and/or quality information to a SQL database. For RSView, I log all the trend data to a SQL database, which is 'user-readable', but requires a great deal of massaging. Again, for the production / quality / usage data, I rely on custom written scripts to take pertinant information and write it to another set of tables in the database. For reporting, I usually toss in Crystal Reports or something similar to format the recorded data. Sometimes, I'll just publish information from the database into a .CSV file, and let the end-user manipulate it in a fashion they can deal with (more people are familiar with spreadsheets than raw SQL access).

Is the cost too high? That depends on a number of factors, but honestly, it doesn't seem unreasonable. Especially today, where hardware is becoming more and more a commodity, and less and less of the actual cost of designing a system. It is probably more difficult to develop well-written and functional (and 'To Customer Spec' or 'Meeting Customer Needs') software than even the most complicated drive/PLC systems. Even currently, working in-house for a single company, I find that software deveopment and maintenance consumes a much greater portion of my time (and resources) than tossing together a couple drives and PLC's to make a piece of equipment function.

gregjwilson said:

Thanks all.
Basically, all they are offering is to put the some of the info that's already being sent to my HMI screen into a flat file.
For $15000.

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