Does it help to learn Siemens PLC help in getting a job in North America?

kohhm75 · Apr 8, 2020

Hello Gurus,

I have started teaching myself Allen Bradley PLC with RSLgoix 500 and LogixPro with grateful and helping comments of you gurus.
Going through the resources on the web, I often encounter Siemens jargons, logics and especially the function blocks.
The function blocks are quite interesting to me and I am thinking of getting a CPU to teach myself.

I know SIMATIC is sort of a mainstream in Europe but not here in North America and thinking my money and time into that may not pay off in terms of getting a job.

Would that be a remarkable advantage to put a line of 'SIMATIC S7-1200 knowledge' on my resume or had I better keep focusing on AllenBradley?

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks and hope everyone keep well.

Aabeck · Apr 8, 2020

Machines imported from Europe are general Sieimen's based. And there's the VIPA clones.

Plus there are a few places in America that spec Siemen"s.

Also, being multi-lingual in programming is a benefit and when you come across a new PLC it will be easier to get into it.

Being trained on AB, Siemen's and Mitsubishi I was able to get into Omron, Idec, Panasonic, Automation Direct and other PLC programs and be able to troubleshoot and update.

kamenges · Apr 8, 2020

As was already stated, knowing more is always better than knowing less. If you can gain some knowledge on a different plc platform for what you consider a reasonable cost then I would do it. Different platforms often approach the same ideas differently, which can have benefits for you completely outside of plc specific program.

I am now going to discount what i just said. When I see people ask "What plc platform should I learn" I see it the same way as people asking "What oven should I learn to bake with". Once you understand how to approach an automation problem the platform you use to address the problem may not be determined by what platform you know how to immediately use. Learning how to work in a given plc programming environment doesn't cost much in terms of time. I went from programming exclusively AB plcs in the early 2000's to doing a couple jobs using Beckhoff plcs (TwinCat). It took me less than a week to get my feet wet. But I already knew how to approach automation problems. THAT is the important part.

Granted, you may run into some cases where a potential employer is completely hung up on platform. If that is what you are worried about then I would stick with AB in the North American market, at least as of today. But if you run into this from a potential employer you may want to reconsider the position. It seems to me that boiling down automation design and implementation to "What PLC can you program" misses the heart of what automation design is.

Keith

Jobbe9000 · Apr 8, 2020

kamenges said:
As was already stated, knowing more is always better than knowing less. If you can gain some knowledge on a different plc platform for what you consider a reasonable cost then I would do it. Different platforms often approach the same ideas differently, which can have benefits for you completely outside of plc specific program.

I am now going to discount what i just said. When I see people ask "What plc platform should I learn" I see it the same way as people asking "What oven should I learn to bake with". Once you understand how to approach an automation problem the platform you use to address the problem may not be determined by what platform you know how to immediately use. Learning how to work in a given plc programming environment doesn't cost much in terms of time. I went from programming exclusively AB plcs in the early 2000's to doing a couple jobs using Beckhoff plcs (TwinCat). It took me less than a week to get my feet wet. But I already knew how to approach automation problems. THAT is the important part.

Granted, you may run into some cases where a potential employer is completely hung up on platform. If that is what you are worried about then I would stick with AB in the North American market, at least as of today. But if you run into this from a potential employer you may want to reconsider the position. It seems to me that boiling down automation design and implementation to "What PLC can you program" misses the heart of what automation design is.

Keith

Every word here is true

parky · Apr 8, 2020

In Europe pick what you like, in the states it tends to be AB (Rockwell), but that seems to be changing, probably because of the pricing, tech connect contracts and in some cases reliability (well in my experience, however, not talking just about plc's).
I suggest you get as much experience in different platforms as possible but concentrate on the main players i.e. siemens, AB, Mitsubishi Omron etc.
In Europe, it does tend to be predominately Siemens so there is a good start if a lot of work is done in that location.

Super Koop · Apr 8, 2020

It's harder to find Siemens guys in the states compared to AB. That being said, if you know it, you can provide "rarer" support.
That may or may not assist you when career discussions roll around.
We see them several times a year, especially European packaging equipment.
For certain, there are "differences".

Ken Moore · Apr 8, 2020

I see more and more job postings looking for TIA portal experience. The S7-1200's are starting to be seen in many small skids. I am also starting to see a lot of fail safe 1200's used in machine guarding. So learning TIA portal would be beneficial in my area of the world.

jraef · Apr 8, 2020

Here is the meat of the issue. This is from 2013, it is basically unchanged.

The "Other" category is going to be primarily Schneider (Modicon) and Mitsubishi, for both North America and Europe.

But as said, knowing more is always better than knowing less. If you are looking for a job with an end user, 58% of them will want to see A-B competency, but knowing A-B and Siemens gets you looked at by 77% of the potential hiring opportunities. If you are looking for a job with a System Integrator, the more platforms you can show proficiency in the more valuable you are to them because from a marketing standpoint that 77% figure holds true for them too.

mk42 · Apr 8, 2020

jraef said:
Here is the meat of the issue. This is from 2013, it is basically unchanged.

Jraef's numbers seem in the right ballpark to me.

As another poster said, the majority of companies are looking for folks with AB experience. However, the higher paying jobs are usually looking for someone with experience outside of AB, and Siemens is the next biggest bucket there. I hear time and time again "AB guys are a dime a dozen, but I have to pay a pretty penny for a Siemens guy". It's usually said as a complaint by a penny pincher, but the notion still stands.

It definitely won't hurt to show that you can pick up something new, regardless of what it is, but if it's Siemens then you'll learn some new programming concepts.

That said, you probably want some experience with the 5000 platform PLCs in addition to the older stuff. Ladder logic is ladder logic, more or less, but there are a lot of differences in how the memory is set up.

Dayvieboy · Apr 8, 2020

The local Siemens integration company
charges considerably more than almost any other integration companies around.

It's not any harder to learn or program,
it's just way fewer people have 10,000 hours of experience with it to
take on any complex projects and run with it.

cardosocea · Apr 9, 2020

mk42 said:
"AB guys are a dime a dozen, but I have to pay a pretty penny for a Siemens guy".

Oddly, the hardware/licensing front is inversely proportional to this.
A lot of their offering is also somewhat lacking... I found yesterday that Rockwell has little for HART devices when Siemens has a HART solution for pretty much all their IO offerings.
This being said, their Flex5000 with a dual fibre port is pretty damn cool and something I've asked Siemens reps to ask upwards when it would happen.

mk42 said:
That said, you probably want some experience with the 5000 platform PLCs in addition to the older stuff. Ladder logic is ladder logic, more or less, but there are a lot of differences in how the memory is set up.

I find the way logic can be structured, or more importantly, reused is greatly different between platforms and it does have an impact on how one approaches development. This being said, moving from Rockwell to Siemens isn't really that hard, it's the other way around that is really hard.

mk42 · Apr 9, 2020

cardosocea said:
This being said, their Flex5000 with a dual fibre port is pretty damn cool and something I've asked Siemens reps to ask upwards when it would happen.

Siemens doesn't really have any IO in quite the same form factor as the Flex, but the ET200SP IO can do Fiber Ports.

The ST interface module only lets you use an RJ45 Bus Adapter (or the Siemens FastConnect), but the HF IM has a ton of options. A few different kinds of fiber connectors, and fiber/copper combos.

Rson · Apr 9, 2020

It can't hurt.

I think it depends entirely on the area you live in. The only (and I mean ONLY) people who use Siemens in my area are a couple of auto-makers. Everyone else is Rockwell or other. When I look at job listings, it is about 90-95% rockwell with an occasional Siemens job.

I would do a job search for a week or two in your area (or intended area) and see what happens.

sigmadelta · Apr 9, 2020

Does it help to learn Siemens PLC help in getting a job in North America?

Yes.

janner_10 · Apr 9, 2020

Siemens isn't some mythical programming language that every european learns from birth, it 90% similar to AB.

Sure there are some massive differences, but for the most, it is the same.

If you are competent is writing software for AB, then you will pick up Siemens TIA in a matter of days if not hours.

I spent 10 years working for a Siemens only SI and moved to a company that uses AB, the transition was easy, from AB to Siemens will also be easier, just not as easy! AB is designed by Americans for Americans afterall.

If there is 2 languages to speak for a PLC job, Siemens and AB are the top 2 of anybodys' list.

Does it help to learn Siemens PLC help in getting a job in North America?

kohhm75

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