Rant about crappy software

Is there any way to recoup the lost $$ associated with crappy software provided by vendors like Siemens, Rockwell, and others?

We were at a customers’ site 200 miles from home to do a small startup on a new machine and customer training. The machine was running fine. It has a PLC and a HMI on it. We made a minor change to both the PLC and HMI program. Everything crashed while downloading the new programs.

Couple of hours talking to tech support, had to send them the program. Their response is to completely uninstall the PLC programming software using 10 pages instructions. Can’t just do a reinstall, have to go into registry and other tedious tasks.

All of this happened on Friday afternoon. So not only was all of this time wasted but we came home from the jobsite over the weekend, brought just the PLC with us and will do the reinstall at our shop. Who knows how long this will really take.

This now requires another trip and maybe overnight stay at customer’s site.

Certainly our customer shouldn’t pay for this mess (we recommended the hardware and software).

You’ve all been there before too: Is there any way to the lost money back from the software supplier?

Sorry for the rant.

If you p1ss and moan you might get a free lunch but that is about it.

I feel you pain. Every day I find a new feature(bug) in SE.

Good Luck, Rockwell may give you a kiss and a hug, if you buy thousands of dollars in hardware, software and licences every year. You`ll most likely have to eat the cost, unless you and your customer can come to an agreement on cost.


Power Company rocked us hard with a transient voltage surge, after one of their 25kv Lightning Arrestors faulted to ground, tripped open the Reclousre, and it slammed shut, after clearing for 4 -6 cycles, and blow up 8 vfds, 1 servo, 10 brake choppers, several braking resistors caught on fire and melted, we paid to fix everything, which was in the $100,000 area.

Sorry but the $1000 you lost is a drop in the bucket, and if you were to boycott RS, Siemens etc, again unless you send thousands each and every year, they really could careless.

Its hard if your a small company, trying to do the right thing.

I'm sure that buried somewhere in the EULA there is a disclaimer that exempts the software company from any incidental damage claims. They probably won't even refund the cost of the software license.

From EULA for FTView SE 7.00:

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL ROCKWELL AUTOMATION OR ITS THIRD PARTY LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS OR CONFIDENTIAL OR OTHER INFORMATION, FOR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, FOR LOST SAVINGS, FOR LOSS OF PRIVACY, AND FOR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY OR OTHER LOSS WHATSOEVER) ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY RELATED TO THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ROCKWELL AUTOMATION OR ITS RESELLER HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. ROCKWELL AUTOMATION'S MAXIMUM CUMULATIVE LIABILITY RELATIVE TO ALL CLAIMS AND LIABILITIES, INCLUDING THAT WITH RESPECT TO DIRECT DAMAGES AND OBLIGATIONS UNDER ANY INDEMNITY, WHETHER OR NOT INSURED, WILL NOT EXCEED THE COST OF THE SOFTWARE GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR LIABILITY. ALL OF THESE DISCLAIMERS AND LIMITATIONS OF REMEDIES AND/OR LIABILITY WILL APPLY REGARDLESS OF ANY OTHER CONTRARY PROVISION OF THIS EULA OR ANY OTHER AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND ROCKWELL AUTOMATION AND REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF ACTION, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, AND FURTHER WILL EXTEND TO THE BENEFIT OF ROCKWELL AUTOMATION’S VENDORS, APPOINTED DISTRIBUTORS AND OTHER AUTHORIZED RESELLERS AS THIRD-PARTY BENEFICIARIES.

You'll find similar language in every vendor's licensing terms. Every single one. Except for EZ-Automation, who couldn't execute a binding agreement to purchase a cheeseburger.

You know how fast folks are to point the finger at the control system when something goes mechanically wrong with the machine ? That's roughly how fast programmers are to point the finger at the vendor when something goes wrong with the OS or the network or the application. If they didn't disclaim responsibility for consequential damages they would be out of business in a month.

All you can do is vote with your checkbook. If you think another vendor is going to have better reliability, go ahead and buy their stuff. But don't complain when you go through a new vendor every other year and discover to that every vendor has bugs and defects, or that offshore vendors have offshore support and offshore inventory.

Control system vendor selection is like second marriages; it's the triumph of hope over experience.

Steve Bailey said:

I'm sure that buried somewhere in the EULA there is a disclaimer that exempts the software company from any incidental damage claims. They probably won't even refund the cost of the software license.

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm already aware of the CYA statements so my rant is more of a rhetorical thing.

Just another one of those things that doesn't seem right.

In my department, I'm the guy who promotes the use of VMWare virtual machines to prevent and diminish the effects of software conflicts and crashes. It costs more, performance is slower, and it takes more work to make sure all the archives are synchronized.

And we only experience a crash about once a year.

But next week I'm working 8,000 miles from the office, on a machine with $500/minute downtime. You can bet I'm not taking any chances.

some of ours are $70,000/hr for downtime, before we start changing parts like the 250hp motor that blew up on thrusday nite for $14000 and the 5 hours of downtime to change it. So it can be challenging to get min downtime, and max up time, especially when dealing with flawed software, our biggest challenge is usually on Wonderware, and not so much on the Rockwell side.

We have all been there. I would be afraid to find out how many hours of lost time I've had because of vendor software bugs. Crashes, not releasing the comm port on shut down, burning new EPROMS, firmware incompatible with the programming version, comm issues, unhelpful help files .........

Unfortunately, the manufacturers all use the same playbook, so it is hard to improve your lot by switching suppliers.

Probably why I have a batch of laptops that are aging but in perfect working order (Dell)
Each with a different PLC software on them.

The times I have said 'don't you dare crash' while a slow download is in progress, especially when it seems to pause forever.

I was working today on a quote about a hour into it. Microsuck Excel crashes.

An hour is not a big deal. But when I am leaving for 3 days and don't have time for it to crash it is a huge deal.

JeffKiper said:

I was working today on a quote about a hour into it. Microsuck Excel crashes.

An hour is not a big deal. But when I am leaving for 3 days and don't have time for it to crash it is a huge deal.

Click to expand...

It's like voting in Chicago: Save early. Save often.


-rpoet

Im with Goody. At minimum I carry at least 2 computers with me at a time. I also have VM ware set up on them with the most important software. This way there is never any issues with computers not working when you need them. One customer I have during peak is $18k per min downtime. Dont wont to upset them with computer issues.

Mitigate any risks of this happening as some of the other guys have said this does happen and surely will happen in the future. There should always be risk mitigation doesnt matter how small the change. In a development environment this is acceptable but any running system there should be a plan B or even C when the system does crashes. I always insist on a recovery plan, you might not recover seamless but at least everything will be in place when it hits the fan.