How many different PLCs on site

[widelto]

In my company we have more than 60 plcs, all of them are allen bradley:
SLC, micro, compact and control logix.
In the future will get rid of slc and micrologix.

 

[VAN]

our standard is AB, no exception.
we have a rep that's an hour away and he will deliver.
we have micrologix, 500's, plc5, compact logix, and logix 5k.
we have a storeroom with backups if one dies.
we have backups of the programs done on a regular basis.

james

Could I suggest you use Asset Centre? It keeps backups of programs when checked out and in and is a great record keeper. (Not sure how good it would be without having a central server you can remote desktop into.)

 

[James Mcquade]

Van,

we have custom software that does the backup, file compare, and sends email reports.
This was done back in the mid 80's before Asset Center was even thought of.
We have a master copy and a working copy also that's backed up weekly.

james

 

[dwoodlock]

We have about 90% or better Siemens with a few oddballs here and there.

S5
PCS7
S7-300
S7-200
S7-1200
Logo (****)

AB
Compact Logix
slc 5/04
micrologix 1500

Automation Direct
we have one, Idk what model it is. The customer owns it, we just have operators that run it.

 

[cmothebean]

Almost entirely AB. Mostly CLX, a few CPX, MLX and a few SLC and PLC5's hanging on, waiting to be upgraded. 2x Schnieder for the winder and 1x Redlion which one of my previous bosses bought without my approval. Luckily there were standards in place before I got here and I enforce them strictly.

 

[MitsM83]

So the last place I worked was all Rockwell everything, even the breakers and relays, all Allen Bradley. It was a 2.5 million sq ft facility with 22 miles of conveyor there were hundreds of PLC 5s they where talking upgrade right before I left a few years ago. It was nice being able to connect from one software to the whole plant!

Now on the press I work on that is like 200 feet long we have Mitsubishi Q series (my favorite so far), Omron NE1A Safety, and Pilz PNOZ. The rest of the plant has Omron either CS or a proprietary build then more of the NE1A safety controller. One area has PILZ safety also. I have heard there are a few random Control Logix in one area but have not seen them.

I miss the standardization but being young my resume is FAT haha.

 

[JRW]

"our standard is AB, no exception.
we have a rep that's an hour away and he will deliver.
we have micrologix, 500's, plc5, compact logix, and logix 5k.
we have a storeroom with backups if one dies.
we have backups of the programs done on a regular basis."

How many pieces of software and cables do you still need?
Just curious..

 

[DwSoFt]

As i am a contractor I have to be prepared for many different brands.

In the oil and gas sector, most Plants are AB, occasionally a Modicon pops up. But for the RTU Side it is all over the place. ROC, Bristol, Schneider, Barton, ABB, etc. They keep me pretty busy. HMI and scada are very plentiful as well. but for most plants there is just the main plant plc, maybe some compressor plcs, and then the RTU for flow calculations, wells and smaller sites run logic off an RTU of 1 type or another.

 

[janner_10]

I must admit,

this is the best plant I have ever worked at.
A coworker and I take turns being on call 24/7 and we remote into the plant
to solve 99.9% of our issues in the middle of the night. Rarely have to come in at 2am. 3 times in 4 1/2 years.
Great boss.

james

I would be asking myself why our plant has so many software issues if it's usually fixed remotely.

 

[cardosocea]

Standardization is fine when you are developing machines in which case you can choose and refine your product with the features of said platform.

However, on the company side pushing for standardization can be a massive mistake... not that they care as upfront cost trumps all other aspects of purchasing, but it can be. Here's my example:

A certain company has development offices in country A, B and C. In countries A and B from where they supply most of their stuff, they standardized on Siemens S7-300. The other branch, used their own controller brand (Beckhoff with an RTOS inside and programmed in Java).
Branch C invested thousands of hours on their machines with that platform and had some pretty nice systems that didn't have that many bugs apart from adapting to other systems.

In comes the company I work for and they demanded that all machines be controlled by a S7-300. The company agrees to not lose out on the sale and pushes a Java developer (previously AB) to convert Java code into Simatic Step7 and get the machine running.

It's been 3 years since commissioning and the control system doesn't have half of the functionality the previous control system built had... so to save a little on stock, they ended up losing plenty of operating hours to fix minor bugs and, worst of all, there was no position control and the machine started developing serious cracks in the welds due to banging on the end of travel.

So as much as I love standardization, I prefer well made and tested systems over my choice of CPU.

 

[BobB]

Oh dear - I am an SI and if the specification calls for other than Omron these days I decline to quote or offer Omron.
I have had fiddling about with stupid software and data structures in PLCs from most manufacturers. The IEC method of label programming and commissioning is way slow and painful.
Have used probably 40-50 PLCs over the years - lost a lot of money fiddling with stupid software, lack of functions, memory structures!
Will not use the latest PLCs out where tags are label based - I program by numbers and like to know where everything is in the PLC.
Then many PLC manufacturers insist on %I/.../.../... - bugger off! The PLC memory is block of memory - make is easy! So many data areas it is stupid. Address the memory area directly and make my life easy.
When there are many different brands of PLC in a factory the amount of time learning a new PLC is enormous. Standardisation is way cheaper - only one PLC brand to learn. From a managers perspective standardisiation saves a lot of money.
IEC is ****! Never mind.

 

[cardosocea]

Aren't you contradicting yourself a little bit?

You only work with OMRON... but what if I have a Siemens plant and want a machine from you? Where is the standardization then?

 

[ryangriggs]

We use
- AB SLC5/05
- AB CompactLogix
- AD DirectLogic
- AD CLICK

and there may be others hiding out somewhere.

 

[the_msp]

14 different PLC manufacturers at last count, many different ranges of those manufacturers. Also various motion controllers, robots, etc

 

[BobB]

Aren't you contradicting yourself a little bit?

You only work with OMRON... but what if I have a Siemens plant and want a machine from you? Where is the standardization then?

As I noted I no longer take on the job. Decline to quote.