Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
Greasy

ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

18 posts in this topic

$1282.70 A YEAR FOR SERVICE CONTRACT COM ON MANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN THEY HAVE LOST THEIR MIND

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
You're right! Spend few thousand box for software and have to pay for keep it updated is crazy. RA block your knowledge base acces if you don't pay, they really need money! I also have a SUS for Siemens product, really expensive too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What is worse, if you have multiple installations, they ding you even harder. We were quoted just under $30k to keep our software in support. I have not been able to get a response when I asked them to pare down their price. What's worse is that the $30k is the DISCOUNTED rate they offered!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The company i work for is starting to consider other brands Omron, Automation Direct. Allen Bradley in my opionon has priced thierselves out of the market. The problem is we have 53 slc 500 in use now an they tell me they cant help with my problem utill we ani up more money well PISS on that just having to Vent a little guys thanks. Edited by Greasy

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What is your problem? Maybe someone here or at PLCTalkForum can help. Edited by Mickey

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
That's just for 8 to 5 support too. I called in the evening once and was told it would cost $400/hr to take my call! I just needed a quick 5 minute question answered but there is also a 1 hr minimum. Not what you want to hear when your working late and your patience is already wearing thin.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Bring your questions here. For free, I seriously doubt that you have any questions that can't answered faster and cheaper right here or at PLCTalk.net We pay about $15k/year for support, but since we have FTViewStudio, it is not possible to go without support. It is not possible to support FTView without access to updates patches and thousands of technical papers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'll tell the guys the good news: No more paychecks, and 24 hour shifts. Technical Support is finally as free to supply as it is to demand !

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Yeah, Ken, we got it ;) Send them all home until after Christmas, but go ahead and pay them...I casually monitor the price of ROK, and it is outperforming competitors best I can tell. Seriously, though for the situation the OP is in, with 53 SLCs (and no other a/b gear?) Is there anything about the SLC500 that can't be solved by some of us self taught forum members? Especially with all the education stored here thank to gracious and accurate guidance and correction from professionals such as yourself...we can do it! I see the moral issue with giving away knowledge that has always been sold contractually , but the rugged individual in me just has an inner dislike for holding a ransom over knowledge and understanding for the customer. Edited by OkiePC

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I do not mind paying for support if it is a reasonable cost. I have a problem with paying tens of thousands of dollars per year on something I MAY use. The problem is that my company only really needs access to the Knowledge Base and an occasional license re-issued after a hardware failure. My local distributor has always been able to support me (often better than Rockwell) in the cases when I need help. For $30k a year, it is better for me to take my chances and if I do lose a license, buy a new installation. The problem with that is that you have to wait days for them to send the disks and license. The days of A-B owning the automotive and Detroit markets are over. Overpricing hardware, software and charging for support are some of the reasons why. The company I work for has been staunch A-B supporters in the past but now we may need to include others in our specifications.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What gets me is how much I pay as an integrator. So lets get this right... You want me to pay you so that I can specify your equipment? Uh, shouldnt you be paying me commisions? I never have understood that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Technical Support isn't that different from insurance: You might use it only a little, or not at all, but it's worth many times over the monthly cost if you need it urgently. I don't have comprehensive insurance on my car because I've judged that I can accept the risk of replacing the whole car in exchange for the monthly cost savings. But my car doesn't employ a hundred people or cost $100 a minute when it's broken. If I ran Tech Support, I would definitely run my pricing structure differently to increase the number of participants and try to decrease the average fee. You might notice I don't run Tech Support. Technical Support's pricing is determined by three important factors: 1. The Popcorn effect. You wouldn't think that a handful of popcorn kernels is worth six bucks. But to keep the popcorn stand available at all, the movie theater has to bring in a given number of dollars to pay for the equipment, the oil and salt and corn and bags, and the teenagers to run them. The only way to make that on a dwindling number of popcorn buyers is to charge a high price per unit. Unfortunately the price per unit also deters buyers, so you find yourself on the back side of a steep curve. If you lower the price per bag, you definitely lower the revenue but you have no guarantee that the volume will increase to compensate because the buying habits are already fixed. The guys who won't pay a price greater than "free" make it geometrically more expensive for the guys who for whom downtime is far, far more expensive. 2. User Overload. About fifteen years ago, RA experimented with a toll-free line for Technical Support. This was just for paying customers, but the call volume went way up once that small barrier to calling was reduced. And what was even more interesting was that the degree of complexity of calls went WAY down: guys were calling for stuff that was clearly explained in user manuals. Our engineers were spending all day reading manuals to guys on the phone while users with complex problems sat on hold. 3. Corporate Structure. This is the part that is RA's fault. Technical Support is expected to be both profitable and functional. It's really, really expensive to have a staff of sixty guys with deep experience and the patience to work with stressed-out programmers all day. And for better or for worse, it's got to pay for itself. See Factor 1. This is a sensitive subject for me because I used to be the guy on the other end of that phone line; we patched field engineers into the phone bank system when we had available hours. I used to volunteer to take the angriest callers as a psychological experiment: for a while I had business cards that gave me the title "Automation Therapist".
1 person likes this

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I can relate...why is it that we are professionals and you are calling for support and proceed to yell at the person who is there to help you? Note to new control engineers, do not do this, or the phone might hangup.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I used to do tech support for the industrial distributor I worked for. It was amazing how appreciative some can be and how rude others can be. The place I worked did not charge for phone support and only sometimes charged for field support. We did it in the interest of supporting and promoting our product. It would get so frustrating to deal with people who were rude to you when you were just trying to help.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I have come to appreciate the cost. And I and see why others do not. If you plant maintenance, and you don't change much of the PLC code in the plant, then don't pay the support yearly agreement. Pay the $400/hr for the phone call when you need it. If you are an integrator, it really depends on the variety of RA products you use. I have yet to find a vendor that can provide a single phone number, where I can get assistance on any product. PLC/SCACA/Drives/Switches....etc like RA can and I KNOW someone will pick up (anytime of day), and I know the Knowledge base is there as a backup. I have yet to find a knowledge base as useful as theirs. GE, Siemens, Wonderware...none can provide the information that the RA knowledgebase can. I was on a startup in the spring, and the system consisted of a RA PLC, Danfoss VFDs, InTouch Scada, and I had every problem imaginable. VFD "emergency" tech support consisted of a single guy with a cell phone who was walking through a parking lot..., Wonderware, you are forced to use your distributor support first, and their "WDN" "answers" to tech problems are not detailed enough to help at times. RA gets me the info I needed when I needed it. Had I used PowerFlex Drives and Factory Talk SE, I would have had one phone number, when I needed them, where I needed them. I wasted a few days tracking down support from multiple vendors. It all depends on what you use, how often you use it and how complex your systems are. I am happy when I go to sight and I have a single phone number to call and a good knowledge base to reference in case things don't go "smoothly".
1 person likes this

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I have to admit that I almost never call support, maybe once a year. I would like to have a different line to call. The I know what I'm doing line. You would have to pass a test to get access. Then I could bypass all the simple questions and jump to the meat of the problem. Just saying.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I can' think of any time in the last 4 or 5 years that I've needed support for CLX or SLC. I write and support fairly simple programs. Big programs... but because I wrote them they are simple Actually... I'm pretty pleased with how easily techs and non-techs can get around one of my programs. I do a lot of extra work (non-work once I wrote the baseline structured text files) to ensure that "need to know" information is easy to find and "dont f with" routines are locked down so no inadvertent changes can be made. Software authorization? That's another story. When I upgraded to 19 and went to the "new" way to authorize and a dongle I had h e double toothpicks. In the end I called the rep and he got us past the first line of defense. The second line of defense sent us up to the third line and the problem was resolved. I purged the cache so I don't remember what the problem was. Oops. I just thought of one but tech support didn't help, the rep did. I dl'd my first Rev 19 program and it got corrupted on the first save while online. I couldn't open it or go online with it once I dropped off line. Even worse, I couldn't upload it to a new file. I always have two or three copies of the programs that I write so I was able to open one of the "non-downloaded" versions and try his fix. The fix, and I still don't know why it works but it does, was to save it as an L5K file then open the L5K file and let it recompile. I do that with every program now and I've never had a problem. I second the "don't yell at support" comments. Yell at the rep Edited by Michael Lloyd

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I add my vote to the "don't yell at support" comments. BUT - I'll remind everyone, if you're going to work in Automation this poem applies. Particularly the first line. IF

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!


Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.


Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0