The GE Forum

[Camel 1]

I am a GE man. Almost every PLC we have is a GE. I am new here but I noticed that the GE forum only gets a new topic every so often. The Omron, Allen Bradly and Siemens forums get posts all the time. Could this be because GE is the most user friendly and reliable PLC out there??? We have an LM6 PLC that has been running nonstop for at least 10 years that we might work on once a year. And that once a year is usually caused by a power failure. We don't even have a way to communicate with it anymore. I think it is, with Modicon coming in a close 2nd. Edited 11 Sep 2004 by Camel

[Chris Elston 79]

I use GE and AB, and some Omron...I 'd say that maybe because GE has their own forum board at the GE website. AB has one too, but it's kind of broken down into specifics. Omron website doesn't have one, so maybe all the Omron people are finding a home here to ask Omron question. Of course there is always plcs.net too, I don't see many GE questions there, so I am going to assume it might be because GE website has their own forum board software much like mrplc.

[Steve Bailey 118]

I would guess that the dearth of GE questions is more a measure of their market share than their reliability and ease of use. They are reliable, but no more so than any of the major brands. Ease of use is a pretty subjective term. What's easy and intuitive to me may seem downright obscure to you. If you've been trained on one brand, and all of your experience has been with that brand, making the switch to another brand will be frustrating. I spent several years as an applications engineer for for a distributor of GE PLCs. According to the numbers we got from GE Fanuc, for the North American PLC market, AB has about a 40 percent share, with Schneider, GE Fanuc, Siemens Automation Direct and Omron in the high single-digits or low teens. I've been out of the distribution business for four years, so the stats may have changed, but I'm sure its still AB in first place by a substantial margin.

[Camel 1]

Its been my experience that switching between brands isn't as hard as one would think. The basic principal is all the same, the hardest part is the way different brands reference their I/O (i.e. a GE input is %I0001, a Modicon input is 100001, a Direct Logic is X00) and that different brands have different I/O options. I dont have any experience in sales, so i don't have a clue as to what percentage of the market share GE has (although i would love to know where to find this). I have a hard enough time just trying to get myself to buy something let alone anyone else.

[Steve Bailey 118]

I agree that most of the wounds suffered in the process of switcing between different PLC brands are self-inflicted. They arise out of trying to force the new brand to behave like the brand you're accustomed to.

[Camel 1]

Steve, Where can I find the info about market shares??

[Steve Bailey 118]

Every year when we had our meeting to set goals and strategy, the GE Fanuc factory rep would come with all sorts of stats, including market share data. I don't know where they got the information, probably from some outfit that does market research. My guess is that if you wanted the same information , you'd have to pay for it.

[Camel 1]

I don't want it that bad. Oh well.... Thanks anyway

[raywins 0]

Steve, The report that GEF and most everybody else used was by ARC. Camel, Follow the link... and have your checkbook out for that $4,900 pricetag for the report! ARC Advisory Group Edited 22 Sep 2004 by raywins

[b2barker 0]

I mainly use AB and GE, with a little Modicon and some others. Personally I find AB's more user firendly than GE's. This may be in part because I cut my teeth on AB's, and because their windows based software is much easier to use. LM90/30 is OK but not really intuitive and Cimplicity ME is flakey (IMHO). Could the reason the forum is not used be that they haven't changed for so long, all the questions have already been answered? I for one am very dissappointed GE didn't see fit to update the instruction set when they released the RX7s. Just give me a CMP and a FAL and I will be happy.