Fed Up With Allen Bradley and Rockwell

[realolman]

I just had to jump in on this one.


One complaint I hear a lot now is the cost of service contracts just to talk to tech. support. All I can say is it's worth the money and the support is first rate. Not some contract yob reading from a script but someone who actually has some knowledge with the product and will work with you until a resolution is found. Many of their tech support people are true experts. Very refreshing in this day and age.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

I disagree with you completely... Someone reading from a script is EXACTLY what I get. So much so that I could recognize what he was reading from having visited the knowlege base myself. Another time the guy actually told me that that was what he was doing

What is so refreshing about paying thousands of dollars to have someone from India read to you over the phone?

You gotta work for Rockwell.

 

[WildeKurt]

The only people I've ever talked to were in the US and a few times in Australia (when I was in California after ET closing times). Never have I gotten someone in India. (yet)

 

[MannyM]

As said, I can only talk for Rockwell SA. They used to, or still have, a "help" line to the UK. I have called them in the past with suspected issues on a breakdown, where the person on the other side knew less than what I knew, only because the person on the other side was less experienced in the spesifics than what I was.

This has changed over time and their service level has improved, but still suspect internationally. A few guys at Rockwell SA still has the experience and knowledge to analyse the problem at hand.

I am not employed by Rockwell. I use their products with confidence.

 

[Alan Case]

As far as I know and I am quite sure it is correct, Rockwell have 3 support centres, 1 in the States, 1 in Melbourne Australia and 1 in the UK. Whi you are connected to is dependant on who you ring. I know the Melbourne office employs quite a few Chinese speaking techs to cover the Cheinese market. Now, they do read from a script but that is to start with. They really have to first to cover the obvious but after that they are quite knowledgeable.
Regards Alan Case

 

[surferb]

Wow, talk about the thread that will never die! This one has more lives than Jack Bauer.

 

[realolman]

Well, it seems that it is important to a lot of people, as it does affect their everyday job, and they recognize what the problem is.

Allen Bradley's and Rockwell's attitude seems to be ... get all the money you can. The value of the product you offer is secondary.

A more respectable approach would be to focus on the quality of your product, so that the money comes as a result of its obvious worth.

I am sure that some will argue that that is what they are doing, but I do not believe it.

If that were true this thread would not exist and continue. This forum would probably not be as vital as it is... this windows stuff IS supposed to be intuitive isn't it?

I think people recognize that they are being underserved by a large corporation that has managed to create a situation, wherein we users are forced to put up with products and services that are definately inferior to expectations... while drawing large percentages of money away from where it should be applied and funneling it to people who should not even be involved.

What is really sad is that that situation was founded upon the manufacture of high quality products.

Now it's money hogs at the top level of one corporation making deals with money hogs at the top of another corporation, to put money into their own pockets.

The products and services are secondary to that.

Ultimately, the large majority of stakeholders suffer on many levels while a few hogs get really, really rich.

 

[surferb]

Well, don't put up with such products then! That's not the signal that we're (collectively) sending. Call it corporate standards, whatever, but the bottom line is that management makes decisions based on what they're given by their "experts". We're buying so they'll keep selling. As much as we complain here - nothing is likely to come of it.

 

[realolman]

....but the bottom line is that management makes decisions based on what they're given by their "experts".

To which "experts" would you be referring?

The stuff that arrives in our facility has no recomendation from anyone in our corporation who would have the slightest idea what he was talking about on any technical level... but there it is.

And aside from that, there is still no excuse for producing a product that is below it's potential.

They put more consideration into trying to make sure you can't use it on more than one computer at a time, than they do into how well the product works.

Considering the expense of the software, tell me why it should be more than the most trivial of tasks to add a button or make a minor modification to a screen on a PanelView Plus. Why should a person able to operate Panelbuilder 32 not be able to do that intuitively and easily?

List what it actually takes to accomplish that... to get the program out of an existing PanelView Plus using Factory talk veiw (or whatever cutesy name they might decide to assign to their stuff that ends with an X), modify it and return the modified program successfully to operation, compared to what it took with Panelbuiledr 32.

All that nonsense is for one reason... and it ain't to enhance the users experience... it's a money suck.

 

[surferb]

That's exactly why I put quotes around "experts".

As sick to my stomach as it makes me, I disagree from a financial perspective. If your product is selling well "as is" and your customers put up with more and more tiered pricing BS, more power to you! The claim that alternatives don't exist is utter garbage! Consider Microsoft with Vista - they had the desktop market pinned down with XP. Up through SP1 they ****ed off enough users with UAC and others that they lost significant sales and market share. MS, being savvier than Rockwell, has responded plus fed significant input into their Windows 7 project...hopefully my point is clear.

And aside from that, there is still no excuse for producing a product that is below it's potential.

You're preaching to the choir on this one! I went from working for a Rockwell Certified Solution Provider, using exclusively Rockwell products (when given the choice), to dispising most of their products, pricing model, etc - AB PLCs and RSLogixXXX and that's it! But if they're still profiting, more power to them!

They put more consideration into trying to make sure you can't use it on more than one computer at a time, than they do into how well the product works.

Considering the expense of the software, tell me why it should be more than the most trivial of tasks to add a button or make a minor modification to a screen on a PanelView Plus. Why should a person able to operate Panelbuilder 32 not be able to do that intuitively and easily?

List what it actually takes to accomplish that... to get the program out of an existing PanelView Plus using Factory talk veiw (or whatever cutesy name they might decide to assign to their stuff that ends with an X), modify it and return the modified program successfully to operation, compared to what it took with Panelbuiledr 32.

All that nonsense is for one reason... and it ain't to enhance the users experience... it's a money suck.

 

[SMOKE]

I have to say all in all most of us AB users have issues. All have been mentioned. My last blow-up with our local sales guru is when I was going off on FT SE and she told me it was the same thing as ME. Thing is we could go to cheaper more friendly software not so wrapped up in activation security, but I hate to get several systems in the plant, and also I want to stay current with the most used software in the US. If I have to move on... most Co's are looking for AB experience.

 

[mainstreetmark]

Count me in on the FactoryTalk hate.

It's nearly intolerable for me to sit around for 3.5 minutes while it compiles and downloads to the HMI and waits for it to reboot. (Red Lions do this in 8 seconds)

It's insufferable to have to use the "Application Manager" to get your work out of it's directory and into your backup system, especially when you forget to do stuff like Close the application before trying to save.

It annoys me to no end when AB talks about "Integrated Architecture" when this is the least 'integrated' of all the major brands.

All morning, i've been trying to get a clean "compile" out of this thing, because it keeps popping the same error out of my global object that positively fixed yesterday.

 

[rdrast]

Count me in on the FactoryTalk hate.

It's nearly intolerable for me to sit around for 3.5 minutes while it compiles and downloads to the HMI and waits for it to reboot. (Red Lions do this in 8 seconds)

It's insufferable to have to use the "Application Manager" to get your work out of it's directory and into your backup system, especially when you forget to do stuff like Close the application before trying to save.

It annoys me to no end when AB talks about "Integrated Architecture" when this is the least 'integrated' of all the major brands.

FTView ME has been going downhill since its introduction. It's gotten so bad, that I refused to have another single Panelview + in this plane.

FTView SE has also had serious issues revision to revision, and even now at 5.x is not a stable nor mature product.

I'm staying with their PLC's (Logix platform only), but would really like to get into a room with their HMI development team and pound some sense into them.

 

[mainstreetmark]

I'm staying with their PLC's (Logix platform only), but would really like to get into a room with their HMI development team and pound some sense into them.

HMI development team???

Oh, the ones that changed all the names from RSView to FTView and therefore pumped the major revision from 3.2 to 5.0? Yeah, they're jerks.

I develop on my large external monitor, yet since RSView 3.2, my right-click menu on some items appears on the opposite screen, in the opposite corner. Never been fixed.

 

[PLCMentor]

I feel your pain on the Panelviews. Our last straw was one of our guys slipping while opening the box and scratching the screen. He didn't even realize he had done it until later in the day - thats how hard he hit the screen. So not only is the panelview a very pricey system compared to the Red Lion offering, it is packaged like something you would get from a lousy ebay seller and the price to fix it was more than a comparable Red Lion product! Compare the packaging to the half price Red Lion product. The screen has a piece of cardboard covering it. Imagine that! I told our rep after that experience that we would not be specifying the pv.

However, I will say that the Logix stuff is great. The programming software is good and the hardware it also good. Rockwell just needs to keep working on their SCADA/HMI stuff to bring it to the level of their new hardware.

 

[PLCMentor]

would really like to get into a room with their HMI development team and pound some sense into them.

Oh thats great! Let me know when you go and I'll join you. We can give them a little southern training class.