O/T Pepsi Bottling Plants all AB

Here is an interesting article on Pepsi plants consolidating sensors to all AB
Here is the article.
Pepsi improves equipment reliability, cuts spare parts inventory

This quote impressed me the most "The Pepsi Bottling Group’s Detroit plant reduced its number of sensors from 180 to 46,"

It's obvious a fluff piece written by someone at RA, no dateline and all, but It's a pretty good read anyhow.
"Rockwell Automation recommended that Pepsi standardize its entire sensors inventory on Allen-Bradley products." ...duh

Good article, thanks!

In time the prices will go up and AB will make their money back and then some.

PepsiCo corporate contracts with various vendors at a set price. That guarantees the vender x amount of sales a year and locks in the prices for the buyer. We have to buy from the vendor even if a local supplier is cheaper, but that isn't ALWAYS the case. We can get Rockwell stuff like processors and cards cheaper than the techs they send out can.Over the years you get a bloat of sensors in inventory. If you have a sharp parts guy, he will weed out the duplicates and keep it under control. Why have infared and visible light photoeyes of the same sensor if you don't need infared? Same thing with QD cable sensor and hard wired. Having one vendor come in and replace all your parts with their brand is scary. Can A/B do eveything Banner can do? It's a good article but any maintenance department that is worried about controlling costs will police that aspect themselves.