Shall we start a survey regarding cost and quality of support ?

JesperMP

Lifetime Supporting Member + Moderator
Join Date
Feb 2003
Location
ᚴᚬᛒᛅᚾᚼᚬᚠᚾ
Posts
16,239
Hi all.

This thread and many more before that mentions the differences for support polices for various PLC brands.
Some brands provide free support, some demand payment before support.
Some has an exhaustive native support. Some delegate support to 3rd parties.
And there are of course differences in the quality and responsiveness of the given support.
Also, there may be very significant regional differences in both cost and quality of the support offered.

And since this is maybe just as important as the cost and quality of the product itself (hardware or software), I think it is a good idea to start a new survey thread on this topic.

Comments ?
Yes, no ?
 
I used to get all Mitsubishi support free (UK). They were always very helpful and would even come to site if they thought they could sell something.

But they suddenly got sneaky. I don't know if by design or accident but all the same, there was suddenly a hidden cost.
To be fair, the telephone number on their main website was a premium number but I used to phone my local Mitsubishi agents (on a local number) and chat with them about whatever problem I was having.

You would get the receptionist and she would put you through to the technical department - except now she put you through to the premium number and rate without you knowing it.
I only found out when I studied my phone bill.

The support is still excellent but they should mention the 'talking rate' I would be a little more succinct instead of going off topic a few times. :)
 
I've been dealing with Omron a lot lately for both HMI and vision applications and their support is fairly good. Usually I go through my distributor for support and if they can't, then I move on to Omron itself.

That being said, I haven't paid for support at all, they advertise that it's free, even having some Omron specialists come out to the plant to help me troubleshoot some issues.

Support was one of the reasons I started dumping AB products in our plant and moving to other brands. I like AB, but for the cost of ownership, it's just not worth it anymore.
 
Automation Direct- A+
Red Lion- A+
Allen Bradley- D or F

Automation Direct guys have always been great. My local Red Lion guy is great and when I had to call RL, they were decent. I think the problem with AB is twofold. First- the it's BS what you have to go through to get support and 2nd, it's BS that you really need it so much!!
 
I was thinking that we should start discussing if we should make such a survey, and what there should be in the survey.

When that has been agreed upon, the real survey can start.
I am imagining that the survey shall be anonymous, and there shall be a moderator.

I'll start with suggesting something.

. What is the background of the surveyee (end-user, OEM, integrator, other ...)
. Where is the surveyee located (country, state).

For each brand that the surveyee wants to review:
.Name of the brand.
.Products used (PLCs, HMIs, I/O, Drives, Software, other ...)
.No of products in use, or for OEMs how many used per year.
.Who is the support contact (original vendor, agent, integrator, other ...).
.What is the cost of phone/email support within normal business hours ?
.What is the responsiveness of phone/email support within normal business hours ?
.What is the quality of phone/email support within normal business hours ?
.What is the cost of phone/email support outside normal business hours ?
.What is the responsiveness of phone/email support outside normal business hours ?
.What is the quality of phone/email support outside normal business hours ?
.What is the responsiveness of spare-part support within normal business hours ?
.What is the responsiveness of spare-part support outside normal business hours ?
.Does the vendor provide application support ? If so what is the quality of application support ?
.What is the cost of software/firmware updates for PLCs, Drives, HMIs etc ?
.What is the cost of software updates for programming/configuration software ?

Don't answer the above !
Just discuss if the above is what shall be in the survey, or if something more or something different should be added.
Or is the above already too much ?
 
It's a worthy conversation, and support should be part of any purchasing or standardization decision.

But frankly, I'm tired as heck of having the company I spent most of my career providing support for get slammed as being rapaciously expensive, or worthlessly incompetent, or actually evil for wanting to be paid for my work.

I was very, very good at what I did for a living, and so were my colleagues.

Conduct this pity party for as long as you like. The grownups have work to do.
 
Ken, is that comment directed at me ?
For the record, I have used AB/Rockwell, quite a lot in the past even, and their support was top-notch.
That AB/Rockwell is one of the brands that demand a support subscription fee does not detract from the people that provide the support, or from the quality of the given support.

This is a fact-finding effort to get a balanced and informed information, rather than just a few persons blanket statements.
What is wrong with that ?

That my personal opinion is that basic support should be included and provided free will not affect my input to the survey. It is just a matter of collecting facts.
And I didn't write that I should be the moderator. Any volunteers ?
 
No, Jesper, it's not directed at you.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that support has no value so it should also have no cost. And I'm tired of the chorus.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.
 
On the issue of support, I feel the more important issue is not support from the manufacturer, but from the local distributor.
I have worked for both Siemens and for Rockwell, they are essentially the same for support, some weak areas, some strong.

Unless you work for a large design firm / machine builder your first level of support is more likely to come via your local distributors technical support staff. In my experience they are the group you have to have good relationship with. Outside of software support agreements, you are more likely to get quicker support from the local support people as you are their direct customer.

My 2 cents.
 
Ken,

I couldn't agree more.
I worked for two oem's for nearly 20 years.

We quote the machine, build the machine, install the machine, and the customer wants us to support the machine free of charge.

I drove 200 miles to reset a circuit breaker and the customer wanted me to eat the cost.

We finally showed one customer our support logs and he then agreed to pay $5k support for all future machines.

regards,
james
 
Hi guys.

I have been trying to crash into A/B programming, and by that I mean head first into shallow water.

Of course I try the forum first, but Tuesday need some one on one over the phone. Called Rock Well. The guy who answered ask if I had a service contract, I said no. (Long pause), guy came back with a 30 day set up for service. I didn't ask, he just set me up, then transferred me ( i thought for and eternity ) nope, rang twice tech picked right up. his name was Dan. An Dan spent about two and a half hours going thru my probs, solving some issues, giving advice, and teaching me some shortcuts.

I could not have been more impressed.

I deal a lot with IDEC, its low level I know, but it works great for the machines we build. IDEC is free service, I even have a direct line to the guy who taught the beginners class. It was the same service and desire to help someone accomplish something they really believe in.

As far as warranty, after the one year is up, of course we ask for a PO before we start helping them TS a machine they should have learned in the first six months.l trust me these thing don't fly to the moon. Not that complicated, and our documentation is excellent. SO if they want me to help them, it cost my company money, so it should cost them money.

Just my two cents too.
 
We're specifying Siemens for all new equipment and upgrades at my plant. I've been fortunate that our local Siemens distributor provides great service and has a top-notch application engineer. They've bailed me out a few times I was in over my head on a retrofit. All in all I think the key is having good local support regardless of brand.

Rich
 
A/B has all ways been great with me, never a issue except maybe a couple of long hold times.
I don't know what my Co. is paying for it but since we are a multi billon dollar Company it might have some thing to do with it.
 
I don't see how this survey would be of value. Large outfits like AB uses a distributor type system and cost quite a bit and others are direct email or phone call away and free. You need quite different training if you have a wide area of product vs small outfit with a single product.

It would be of more value ONLY IF comparison are done between systems of similar capability. Therefore, comparing AD with Siemen or Rockwell is meaningless. You wouldn't compare a class 8 truck maker (semi) with a maker of family sedan.

In the end, one usually gets they paid for. Usually.
 

Similar Topics

I am a student who has gotten his hands on a Telemecanique TSX17. But now I have the thing, I want to put it to use. But the killer application...
Replies
8
Views
2,628
Hi guys! I'm working in Studio 5000 and have a bunch of armorstarts there (+- 40). I need to set up parameters for each of them, mostly just same...
Replies
0
Views
75
Hello I am trying to make a program work with a sqo instruction .The process has 5 steps ,and a starting step of zero.There should be 8 sec...
Replies
17
Views
969
Does a solid state soft starter have a DC Buss / DC Buss voltage like a VFD does?
Replies
1
Views
239
Good morning to everyone on the forum and happy new year. I'm trying to use the following functions in sysmac studio, because I need to enable one...
Replies
1
Views
306
Back
Top Bottom