OT business must be good

We just sent out RFQ's (request for quote) to some suppliers for some new equipment (an extruder and an accumulator).

I specified the electrical requirements and stated that SSD drives be used for both machines and Eurotherm temperature controllers be used for the heat control on the extruder.

SSD and Eurotherm are our standards. The drives are very powerful and reliable. We also have spares for SSD and Eurotherm and the maintenance guys are familiar with them.

One supplier quoted an extruder with a Siemens drive and Siemens PLC for temp control and told us that was the only way they would supply it.

Another supplier refused to quote on either machine because of what I specified for drives and temp control.

ARE THESE GUYS NUTS!

Neither of these machines is very complicated at all, not even enough to require a PLC. For one company to refuse to conform to our spec and another to not even quote seems crazy.

It would probably be about 10 hours engineering work on both machines to change drive suppliers. And the Eurotherm temp controllers are designed specifically for this.

I can see paying a premium for using controls that aren't there standard or refusing if there was significant Engineering effort or risk but there isn't?

I thought the world was broke and manufacturing was in the toilet. I thought these guys would be a little more eager to earn our business. If I was a sales guy or the business owner I'd be po'd

What do you guys think?

I can understand the why if neither supplier has worked with the drives you specified.

Look at it this way. Why can you not accept a Siemens Drive? Your OEM's have the same reasons for not accepting SSD and Eurotherm.

You want the componets used to be soemthing your familar with, so does the builder.

Also 10 hours to learn a drive you never worked with before? That seems nuts to me.

I have worked with SSD and Eurotherm and it took me alot longer than 10 hours to understand them. I am not knocking them they are very powerful but like most things it takes some time to get familar with them.

Take a look at it this way. Your asking your OEM to quote the unknown. With times tight like now can he afford to take that risk?

Like I said I could understand if this was complicated but neither application is very difficult or very demanding.

Not and insult to you but yes I can figure out how to wire and program an application like this on a drive I've never worked with before in 10 hours no problem. For an application like this you just put in the motor data and auto tune and your done.

I've got nothing against Siemens drives but as I said we standardized years ago on SSD so that we could have common spare parts and the Electrical staff would just have to learn to work with one drive.

Seems silly to turn down 3/4 of a million dollars woth of business just because you don't want to do a bit of Engineering that we'd be willing to pay for anyway.

What risk????

I disagree with the reply. It seems odd to me that not one, but 2 suppliers would be willing to not quote with the specified components. Tack on an extra charge for the lack of familiarity, and give it a shot. Simply refusing to conform doesn't speak well about your company. In these economic times, I'd be surprised that these places can afford NOT to try to procure any and all work possible. If no one else will bid this, let me know and I'd be more than happy to take a look. I work with a local machine shop who does the equipment manufacturing while we do the controls work on a subcontract basis. I can tell you that the bid will be higher than normal due to a lack of familiarity with SSD drives, but at least you'll have a number to use for justification.

Should have mentioned that these are both European companies with reputations of being stubborn. I have no idea what the state of the economy is in Europe right now. Maybe they don't need the work?

An American company replied with a "no problem, whatever you want".

allscott said:

Like I said I could understand if this was complicated but neither application is very difficult or very demanding.

Not and insult to you but yes I can figure out how to wire and program an application like this on a drive I've never worked with before in 10 hours no problem. For an application like this you just put in the motor data and auto tune and your done.

I've got nothing against Siemens drives but as I said we standardized years ago on SSD so that we could have common spare parts and the Electrical staff would just have to learn to work with one drive.

Seems silly to turn down 3/4 of a million dollars woth of business just because you don't want to do a bit of Engineering that we'd be willing to pay for anyway.

Click to expand...

Impressive. So the drive is basically acting as a soft start. no ramp control needed, no speed control. No need to monitor feedback or react to another part of the process? Just load the motor data and set it at some speed and your off to the races?

Curious. SSD is a programable drive, do you not require any of these higher functions? It was these functions that took me awhile to learn (definatly exceeded 10 hours). Also the system I worked on used several of the Link modules, so that was thrown into the mix.

I really do understand your point of view. I spent a rather large part of my career as a plant engineeer and project engineer. I build machines now so I also see the other side of things and I have to consider these when quoting a job and to be perfectly honest when we do go though all the trouble of figuring the job and tack on the added cost the customer says "NO thanks too expensive". So now we have several hours spent and get nothing in return.

My point is: You have standards for a reason, so do OEM's.

Clay B. said:

Impressive. So the drive is basically acting as a soft start. no ramp control needed, no speed control. No need to monitor feedback or react to another part of the process? Just load the motor data and set it at some speed and your off to the races?

Curious. SSD is a programable drive, do you not require any of these higher functions? It was these functions that took me awhile to learn (definatly exceeded 10 hours). Also the system I worked on used several of the Link modules, so that was thrown into the mix.

I really do understand your point of view. I spent a rather large part of my career as a plant engineeer and project engineer. I build machines now so I also see the other side of things and I have to consider these when quoting a job and to be perfectly honest when we do go though all the trouble of figuring the job and tack on the added cost the customer says "NO thanks too expensive". So now we have several hours spent and get nothing in return.

My point is: You have standards for a reason, so do OEM's.

Click to expand...

With an extruder it really is that simple. The ramps come from the PLC and it's a matter of simple speed control.

The SSD is already set up to do this right out of the box. 0-10V in for speed reference, 0-10V out for feedback, install a relay for a start command, and take back a drive ready signal to the PLC.

If I were an OEM I wouldn't be scared to use anyones drive if the customer wanted on an extruder.

And yes the higher level functions in these drives can get quite complex. These are probably the most powerful drives I've ever worked with, throw in a plethora of different networking options and yes it can get quite complicated and no these aren't the most user friendly drives.

But for an extruder it would take about 10 minutes to set the drive up.

allscott said:

Should have mentioned that these are both European companies with reputations of being stubborn. I have no idea what the state of the economy is in Europe right now. Maybe they don't need the work?

Click to expand...

There is a big downturn in the manufacturing companies over here, especially the car industry. Maybe not as hard as in the US, but nevertheless significant enough.

There is a difference in the economy of manufacturing businesses (factories that require automation) and the economy for the machinery builders (who are suppliers to the manufacturing companies).
We machine builders are even more sensitive to market ups and downs. If there is even a slight downturn in consumer spending, then the manufacturing businesses go on low production - and suspend all investments. When consumer spending goes up slightly, the manufacturing businesses invest like crazy - good for us.
However, because many production investments takes a relatively long time to implement (in our business from signing the contract until signing the takeover it takes between 1-3 years), there is a significant delay. All these machinery builders still have full order books from when the economy was good.

So what I am saying is that these european machinery builders are mighty smug at the moment, but just wait another 4-6 months and they will come back, begging for work.

allscott said:

Like I said I could understand if this was complicated but neither application is very difficult or very demanding.

Not and insult to you but yes I can figure out how to wire and program an application like this on a drive I've never worked with before in 10 hours no problem. For an application like this you just put in the motor data and auto tune and your done.

I've got nothing against Siemens drives but as I said we standardized years ago on SSD so that we could have common spare parts and the Electrical staff would just have to learn to work with one drive.

Seems silly to turn down 3/4 of a million dollars woth of business just because you don't want to do a bit of Engineering that we'd be willing to pay for anyway.

Click to expand...

Well if it is so simple do it in house -
why just think of the cost savings to the company
and you are going to be a hero.

Dan Bentler

Maybe business is bad for them, and they don't feel they have the manpower to dedicate the time to do a project using hardware they know little about? Maybe they think that in the end the problems they may have will eat away at what profit they would make on the job because of all the service calls while under warranty?

I'm about as small as a business gets in our industry.

Looking at it the other way, if a company in Europe we asking me to quote some specific equipment that I was unfamiliar with, I would probably decline to quote it too.

The risk are too great to do a first job with a product so far away. It may be a simple task, but providing support, especially over the phone, on even the simplest task will be very tough if I have never worked with the equipment before. If the customer is dissatisfied, I'll have to make an unplanned trip to Europe or hire someone like Jesper to visit the facility and fix the problem. Either option would exhaust more than the average profit in a "simple" job

allscott,

I know an extruder oem here in the states that uses SSD/Eurotherm. I don't know if its their standard, but I've seen it on a few of their lines. Send me a PM and I'll forward the contact info to you.

I think it is very much a euro attitude. Every time ive had to build a machine for european owned companies, they had specified every single piece in the panel(buttons, relays, plcs, the panel itself, drives, terminal strips EVERYTHING). And its always european based hardware as well (even though they almost always goto an american plant). I wager this attitude is prevelent amung the machine builders there as well. Ive known some brewery manufacturers that refuse to use anything but their standard plcs and components (siemens).
Our company will make a machine any style you want. Its been a real PITA sometimes to take a large 26 slot dual rack SLC 505 machine and turn it into a S7 machine. Not so easy to convert. Flip side is ive worked on pretty much every major brand of plc now.

matt

Just tagging along with the general feedback here.

Some companies are more or less averse to risk than others. It's simply in the nature of their business model. I suspect many OEMs will have methods of working and products with which they are familiar. Based on all these elements they feel confident they can control the 'unknowns'. So when a customer says I want to be able to package 20000 tablets a minute, or wrap forty pallets per second, or slit 7000 meters of sheet metal per hour they will respond based on that requirement first and foremost. Using what they know with confidence can do the job. If the customer states a preference for particular control equipment the OEM may regard that as a secondary priority which can be negotiated, whereas the production requirements are assumed to be cast in stone.

I remember encountering a situation once where an end-user had Siemens as his site standard, and yet an OEM he approached refused to use Siemens. Trouble was, the OEM's machine was ideal for the job in hand and going to another OEM was really not an option. Somehow Siemens got involved (probably end-user pressure) and ended-up offering training, development equipment etc to the OEM - free! It actually seemed to end up as a no-lose situation: the end-user got his machine and kept his standards; the OEM now had a second string to his bow and could offer Siemens as an alternative in future to other customers; and Siemens still got the equipment order. I'm trying to work out who lost here. I'm sure somebody must have.

So, Allscott, could you get SSD & Eurotherm to have a word with your OEMs? Maybe flex a bit of corporate muscle? Offer some kind of deal?

Just an idea.

Thats really cool of siemens. Never offered me that Guess I need to say NO more often?