What are the most commonly used PLCs today?

CapinWinky said:

Ultimately I think AD is 3rd in US market share and I that might be a comfortable lead.

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Disagree ... Mitsubishi is 3rd then AD

Yeah, you can just look at metric in America to see how hard it is to change no matter how good the result would be.

geniusintraining said:

Disagree ... Mitsubishi is 3rd then AD

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Agree but I see a lot of Omron specified too.

jstolaruk said:

Agree but I see a lot of Omron specified too.

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Agree... I do think Omron and AD are maybe more neck in neck... maybe even Omron with the edge, I go by sales of communication cables and AD are down on the list but a lot of customers would/are buying direct from them, I do sell a LOT more Omron cables than AD but I am cheap when you look at a percentage of cost, I am sure a lot of AD customers buy their cables from AD and not me (even though I think mine are better)

I think its funny how different industries lean more for one than the other... when I go to a Peach manufacturing its going to be AD and Omron, when I go to Chickens its more Allen Bradley and Ice Houses are Mitsubishi's

geniusintraining said:

Agree... I do think Omron and AD are maybe more neck in neck... maybe even Omron with the edge, I go by sales of communication cables and AD are down on the list but a lot of customers would/are buying direct from them, I do sell a LOT more Omron cables than AD but I am cheap when you look at a percentage of cost, I am sure a lot of AD customers buy their cables from AD and not me (even though I think mine are better)

I think its funny how different industries lean more for one than the other... when I go to a Peach manufacturing its going to be AD and Omron, when I go to Chickens its more Allen Bradley and Ice Houses are Mitsubishi's

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I'd have to give the edge to Omron by virtue they have a safety PLC option and support Ethercat & Ethernet/IP. Though I'm primarily diesel & automotive and I have yet to see a AD component in any Tier 1 automotive or diesel plant; only non-automotive.

geniusintraining said:

I go by sales of communication cables...

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I mean, wouldn't most PLC communication cables be Ethernet or, for PLC to X67 devices, standard M12 styles? If you're going by proprietary cables, you're only seeing brands backwards enough to still use proprietary cables.

CapinWinky said:

you're only seeing brands backwards enough to still use proprietary cables.

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I would agree but I have been selling them since 2006 so going by the past 13 years of data and not just what is selling today

cardosocea said:

I don't have examples to the contrary, but would say that this is normal human behaviour. We're still tribal deep down and allegiance to a brand (any brand) is based on that and not always logic.

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Well, I agree with the tribal thing but that's not the problem here, IMO.

To make an informed decision one also assume people have access to 1. un-biased information and 2. know well what their own selection criteria is. I honest don't see either of these very common in this industry at the end-user level. Ever. Even for something as common in the USA as AB PLC, I still sometime get **** programming from OEM or integrator.

Also, as mentioned, the ability for after sales support is paramount in our world. I have been burned more than once going with something "better and more advanced".

Just saying, maybe there are tons of very legit reasons for people going with the tried and true.

GE and Honeywell are also in the mix.

Here is a list from 2014:
List of Top Most Widely used PLC’s in the Industry.

ABB
Siemens
Rockwell Automation(Allen Bradley)
Mitsubishi
Delta PLC
Panasonic
Schneider Electric
B&R Automation
Bosch(Rexroth)
Hitachi
Keyence
Fuji Electric
GE-Fanuc
Honeywell
Keyence
LG
L & T
Omron
Beckhoff
Unitronics
WAGO
Crouzet
Fatek Automation
Toshiba
Yokogawa
Messung

harryting said:

Well, I agree with the tribal thing but that's not the problem here, IMO.

To make an informed decision one also assume people have access to 1. un-biased information and 2. know well what their own selection criteria is. I honest don't see either of these very common in this industry at the end-user level. Ever. Even for something as common in the USA as AB PLC, I still sometime get **** programming from OEM or integrator.

Also, as mentioned, the ability for after sales support is paramount in our world. I have been burned more than once going with something "better and more advanced".

Just saying, maybe there are tons of very legit reasons for people going with the tried and true.

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The comment comes from my personal experience (and not even from the forum) where people blindly defend Rockwell even if it's the worst solution of the bunch.

Here's two examples:

I came into a company that went to market for a machine that has been fully developed in brand A, but because the site is a "Brand R" site, they went ahead and paid an additional 20% for the control system to be "ported" to Rockwell...
This resulted in a heap of **** with bugs and the supplier isn't quite forthcoming because it's a one of a kind. There are two national scale distributors for Brand A less than an hour's drive away...

On the Christmas do last year, I met one of the previous automation engineer for this site and the second thing he ever told me was "Why are you taking out the Rockwell stuff?" as if I was doing that to hurt him personally... No regard, or even interest in the month long study on which would be best to go forward with in the current market.

Your points are correct, labour and availability of parts are huge in today's lean budgets for plants, but tribal "logic" is still very much present.

NetNathan said:

GE and Honeywell are also in the mix.

Here is a list from 2014:
List of Top Most Widely used PLC’s in the Industry.

ABB
Siemens
Rockwell Automation(Allen Bradley)
Mitsubishi
Delta PLC
Panasonic
Schneider Electric
B&R Automation
Bosch(Rexroth)
Hitachi
Keyence
Fuji Electric
GE-Fanuc
Honeywell
Keyence
LG
L & T
Omron
Beckhoff
Unitronics
WAGO
Crouzet
Fatek Automation
Toshiba
Yokogawa
Messung

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Forgot about GE... and yes they are up there for sure, surprised Koyo/AD was not on your list

AD is a privately held corporation. All of those companies on that list are publicly held.

The order of that list doesn't look right; I would have put Siemens at the top. I have yet to run into most of those PLC manufacturers or were totally unaware of their existence.

The header says "in the industry" but the 1st post shows that the OP mean "in the US".

jstolaruk said:

The order of that list doesn't look right;

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I did not think it was in a specific order, just a list

NetNathan, can you post a link of where you got that from and what industry was it for?