Siemens Vs AB

[504bloke]

Unfortunately those days are long gone and you are now at the mercy of Routeco (unlucky lads!), has their support improved at all?

IMO NOPE

They are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

 

[MartB]

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!

I was programming Modicon in the 80's, so yes I've heard of them.

I was installing machinery in Turkey 2 years ago and only saw AB, but that was predominantly in the Ceramics industry so it may be different in that sector of the market there.

Don't forget that the Logix family can also be programmed in FB, SFC, Structured text, and not ladder only.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Siemens has made big inroads in the US because they have made a marketing push. They have dropped prices for new equipment out of the stratosphere to compete, and are becoming a strong presence in PLCs, VFDs, MCCs, the whole works. They seem to have developed a strategy to price low on new installs and kill you on replacement parts.

I find Siemens documentation and tech support much worse than A-Bs or Telemecahnique (Modicon). However, we are fortunate in my area to have good distributors with tech support for all three brands, especially A-B. If I had to count on factory support for any of the three I'd be in deep doo doo.

My preference overall for these three is still A-B. My preferred brand if I have a wide open selection is AutomationDirect.com. I have to think they are taking market share from the other guys, but are probably still much smaller overall in the states. I don't know about Europe.

 

[PeterW]

Siemens has made big inroads in the US because they have made a marketing push. They have dropped prices for new equipment out of the stratosphere to compete, and are becoming a strong presence in PLCs, VFDs, MCCs, the whole works. They seem to have developed a strategy to price low on new installs and kill you on replacement parts.

I find Siemens documentation and tech support much worse than A-Bs or Telemecahnique (Modicon). However, we are fortunate in my area to have good distributors with tech support for all three brands, especially A-B. If I had to count on factory support for any of the three I'd be in deep doo doo.

My preference overall for these three is still A-B. My preferred brand if I have a wide open selection is AutomationDirect.com. I have to think they are taking market share from the other guys, but are probably still much smaller overall in the states. I don't know about Europe.

Personally I find Siemens documentation very good, but that's when you find can find it, the website is not user friendly in that respect, they seem to have too much information and its a pain finding what you want.

Usually when you find it, it is very good though.

 

[RMA]

Usually when you find it, it is very good though.

In as much as all the info you need is usually there, I agree. However, sometimes the simple things which one requires as a newcomer, are glossed over instead of being highlighted in some way.

Maybe this is intended to increase attendance at their training courses!

 

[rPraveenkum]

Rockwell's another big database is the Knowledgebase for finding more solutions & Sample cody library is another one for more informative

 

[gopalvora]

Hi

I agree with PeterW.

But in India AB online support is good . Everry time i got the solution of my issue...

 

[RonHowellDotCom]

Both AB & Siemens are good products. Both have large installed bases in dollar volumes. AB is very strong in N. America but is doing well outside of the US (now). Siemens is strong in most places in the world.

I would guess that Siemens has a lot more PLCs installed worldwide than AB based on the number of units. AB has always been pricy and therefore not the best choice for machinery builders where PLC costs are important. I have seen very agressive pricing come in from Siemens when high volumes are in play, this results in more Siemens PLCs in more equipment.

I would say AB's support is better than Siemen's. They both have a place in the marketplace.

 

[CheezyMane13]

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 my most recent knowledge, which has been this year so far. Siemens customer and tech support is lousy, both when you contact the US or German office. I was working on a job for a company in Germany and its was being built in the USA, we were fond to be at the mercy of Siemens until they responded back to us, which sometimes could be a few days.

Working with AB recently its been great, there Tech Connect is great, if you have a question you can log on and IM a tech support specialist, and they will help you or direct you to the answer. Parts are also much easier to get from AB in my opinion.

But when it all comes down to it, AB is primarily USA, Siemens is heavily German. So with that said they are gonna be more dominant in there native lands.

This is also similar to the age old debate of Metric vs Standard. Why is USA still using Standard? Why does most of the world use Metric? Some things are unknown as to why, but in the end its down to preference.