FactoryTalkview ME

[cardosocea]

but.... that's still a poorly ran plant, 25 years of running and they couldn't set aside a budget for at least some equipment upgrades with the money the machine is making by being in production?

The key is always the downtime... when accounted, more often than not it's more costly than the expenditure. It's also because things are run at 100% capacity without a spare to be planned in for a proper upgrade. Add in lack of space because decommissioning costs money and doesn't add production and you have this situation.

I'm not saying you're wrong, you are correct that it's a poorly run plant if this is the case, but it's very rarely a matter of just money.

Then you have customers like Boeing and Rolls Royce that must audit and approve the machine for use if they're the end customer, which is a bit painful to do and adds on to the top of things to worry about on an upgrade. And yes, they are very, very, very strict (and that's a good thing, I fly on their kit).

 

[chelton]

The day that one of the other manufactures incorporate a conversion utility from a .mer to whatever will be the end of the panel view. @RedLion @AD @Omron how about it? There are so many panelviews out there, the only reason they won't change is due to the cost of re-engineering the HMI.

 

[parky]

I think there are many factors that cause companies to either change or stay with their equipment types.
1. Changing platforms requires more spares to be held
2. Re-training of engineers
3. cost is one obvious factor in changing platforms, however, this has to be factored in the decision due to the above 2.
4. Many companies especially in the US or US owned in other countries like to be patriotic, with large corporations this seems to be more important than cost.
5. Upgrading even if using the latest equipment from the sme manufacturer is not always tht cost effective, many upgrades will still require a lot of engineering input & RW's approach to a prolific ever increasing versions & their seeminly reluctance to allow their IDE's to be used on legacy equipment makesit a little painful, I say this with a little reservation as I have not been in the loop for a couple of years, just what I seem to notice from other posts.
Many HMI's can be replaced with other types without a lot of effort. I replaced 6 off PV550's with Beijers E series, the mounting hole was different but we had a number of adapter plates made, in actual fact the Beijers had an adapter plate to convert from the older series to the E series that worked, however, these werenot stainless so our local metal basher made some in stainless & the cost was only slightly higher than the adapter plates you could buy.
Although not overly complicated (but probably considered middle complexity) It only took me a day by having two laptops & checking the configuration between the two, as the other 5 were almost identical with minor variations I could do perhaps 3 a day, in all, the cost saving compared to either keep maintaining the old panels & upgrading to the Beijers, the apparently more reliable platform, the additional benefit of colour & better resolution graphics extra features, lower cost of the units & so on it was a no brainer. It was even better for our maintenance staff, should a unit fail, we had a set of USB sticks with the program & recipes on, just a matter of getting a new unit, plug in the stick, copy it across & fit it.

 

[arpus4KM]

The key is always the downtime... when accounted, more often than not it's more costly than the expenditure. It's also because things are run at 100% capacity without a spare to be planned in for a proper upgrade. Add in lack of space because decommissioning costs money and doesn't add production and you have this situation.

I'm not saying you're wrong, you are correct that it's a poorly run plant if this is the case, but it's very rarely a matter of just money.

Then you have customers like Boeing and Rolls Royce that must audit and approve the machine for use if they're the end customer, which is a bit painful to do and adds on to the top of things to worry about on an upgrade. And yes, they are very, very, very strict (and that's a good thing, I fly on their kit).

I'm well aware of plant logistics that prevent easy replacement of machines or systems, a lot of which that are on par with the refueling of a nuclear reactor for the navy which requires cutting through the ship itself to gain access to it. Plants literally build themselves around a large piece of vital equipment that was brought in and installed when nothing else was in there. but that doesn't mean they can't keep it running in top shape. There are the places that plan out upgrades to ensure reliability, and then there are the ones that run it til it dies and hope they can buy spares off ebay after the fact. The worst customers are the ones that refuse to buy anything new or upgrade, and then try to watch the clock while you attempt to help them get it running again like the largest cost of this endeavor is how long you read a manual on a 25+ year old piece of gear.