Siemens Vs AB

MartB

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Ok, Firstly I want to state that this is NOT a rant, opportunity to flame me, or designed to re initiate an age old arguement, this is purely my opinion and question.

I am noticing that Siemens questions are being posted more often that either basic PLC questions of AB specific questions.

My question is twofold:

a) is this because of an increase in popularity of Siemens?

b) is this an indication of the level of support from Siemens?

I use AB software/hardware almost exclusively and haven't even seen a Siemens program in over 15 years (apart from those posted here of course), and this is the primary reason for asking this question (if Siemens is on the increase then maybe I need to pay more attention).

Or am I just way off base? It was just a thought that I had reading through threads recently.
 
aikona said:
Well US is AB country and Europe is Siemens country ... I Yet have to see a AB PLC ... We are still able to choice our PLC type and that not bad..

All of the machines that I have supplied to Europe over the last 8 years (previous to that I was in Europe supplying to the rest of the world) have been AB controls.

During my time supplying from within Europe, I would say that only 5-10% were Siemens.
 
As A-B and Siemens both have large userbases, I would suggest possibly that the growing visibility of this site plays a big part as well. Along with that, the growing visibility of search engines such as Google tend to draw more people here.

When a user is looking for something these days, they (at least I do) usually go to Google to do a search. PLCs.net forum messages are often at the top of the results.

OG
 
I know I was drawn here by google.

We started getting a lot of foriegn equipment that were all ran using Siemens controls, and looking through google (because I failed at efficiently navigating Siemens' website) led me here.

I think with manufacturing moving all over the world to find cheaper labor and production, machines that were once supported in the region they were made by the people that made them are now in whole new place, and new people are being exposed to these controllers that they have never used.
 
Operaghost said:
As A-B and Siemens both have large userbases, I would suggest possibly that the growing visibility of this site plays a big part as well. Along with that, the growing visibility of search engines such as Google tend to draw more people here.

When a user is looking for something these days, they (at least I do) usually go to Google to do a search. PLCs.net forum messages are often at the top of the results.

OG

I agree with your point about greater visibility of this site.

Do you think that along with greater exposure we get a larger number of "inexperienced" engineers (by this I mean inexperienced with programming a particular software package)?
Sorry if the above offends anyone, it is not intended to.
I myself was an "inexperienced" engineer for some time and still am in many many many areas of my knowledge.
 
MartB said:
My question is twofold:

a) is this because of an increase in popularity of Siemens?

b) is this an indication of the level of support from Siemens?

Yes, all the above.

Questions:=Fudge Factor*Popularity*difficulty_of_use/support.

Personally I would be happy if no one asked a tech support question about our products. We try to keep the difficulty of use small and support big.

I think the S7 has a much higher and steeper learn curve than the ABs. I think this difference goes away when both are using ST or SCL.
 
MartB said:
I am noticing that Siemens questions are being posted more often that either basic PLC questions of AB specific questions.

My question is twofold:

a) is this because of an increase in popularity of Siemens?

b) is this an indication of the level of support from Siemens?


Or am I just way off base? It was just a thought that I had reading through threads recently.

MartB - my experience over the last year or so is that Siemens/AB questions come in waves, if you happen to read threads at a particular time it can appear that one or the other is predominant. I think it evens out over time.
 
Peter Nachtwey said:
Yes, all the above.

Questions:=Fudge Factor*Popularity*difficulty_of_use/support.

Personally I would be happy if no one asked a tech support question about our products. We try to keep the difficulty of use small and support big.

I think the S7 has a much higher and steeper learn curve than the ABs. I think this difference goes away when both are using ST or SCL.

If you had no tech support questions, would you assume it was well written and easily understood or that it is being under utulised?

I write my code in a way that I hope my customer can understand with minimal involvement from me, I am used to dealing with telephone inquiries for the first month after installation but they tail off dramatically after that usually. I know this is different from software development of a PLC language but i wonder if we all stopped calling Rockwell/Siemens would they think something was wrong or just that we are under utilising the software/hardware available?
 
From personal expierence

In Answer to your questions

1. I think they are trying to take over the world :) !
I see more and more of siemens equipment each day.

2. UK only - I dont think so, i am using siemens more and more and find there support is far superior to rockwells at least here in the uk. They also have more than one distributor (siemens that is). RA (AB) only have Routeco in the UK who IMO from expierence again are complete w*****s. Now back in the good old days when i could phone the states and didnt need to be on a contract to get an AB Answer then i would say AB had better support!
 
I remember how badly Rockwells support used to suck when I was working from the UK. We got to the point where we would not bother to call them at all and simply get up early to call support in the US instead.

Unfortunately those days are long gone and you are now at the mercy of Routeco (unlucky lads!), has their support improved at all? I've not used them since I left the UK several years ago, but I'm just curious.
 
In Canada, Most places that I have worked with or have friends working with have a variaty of PLC's. Siemens, AB, and Modicon mostly. On the west coast I heard they are using alot of Omron. On the east coast (offshore) Siemens seems to be winning all the contracts, Where as, On shore its split between AB and older Modicon systems...Although Siemens seems to be making inroads here as well. PLC's.net is a great place because of the people who frequent it. Most are willing to share their knowledge and experience without to much hastle or red tape. Answers will comeback faster then through PLC company support lines as well. This is my two cents for what its worth...:whistle:
 
sirhiss2 said:
In Canada, Most places that I have worked with or have friends working with have a variaty of PLC's. Siemens, AB, and Modicon mostly. On the west coast I heard they are using alot of Omron. On the east coast (offshore) Siemens seems to be winning all the contracts, Where as, On shore its split between AB and older Modicon systems...Although Siemens seems to be making inroads here as well. PLC's.net is a great place because of the people who frequent it. Most are willing to share their knowledge and experience without to much hastle or red tape. Answers will comeback faster then through PLC company support lines as well. This is my two cents for what its worth...:whistle:

I have to agree, this site is invaluable (especially the search option).

I have fallen into the habit of posting on this forum before I call tech support of any kind.
Mostly because the answers I get here are 'real world' answers but also because of the speed of service.

Hooray for plcs.net:site:
 
re:

It's something about the brand's power in that country.

I'm working as a commisioning engineer in Turkey; siemens owns more than half percent of the market, modicon telemecanique and ab follows em.

The end system users, purchasing managers etc. dont care about the flexibility, or scan times, or AI's, or communication protocols... They just care about having a "SIEMENS" branded system here.

I entered the sector with ab, used almost ewery cpu, hmi, driver and scada applications. AB's products are (both software and cards) user-friendly, easy to operate and manage.

Siemens is more sophisticated, user-enemy!, but i can politely say STL,DB and FB based programming is more powerful than AB's ladder.

I think u should add a third brand, modicon telemecanique. They are rising in the europe sector for being the 2nd brand. I dont know the american market (except ab's power), or if u ewer heard of em.

These are news from Turkey and Europe.... Take care!
 

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