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Does Rockwell Automation Hate its Customers?
3 Comments · Posted by Scott Whitlock in Industrial Automation
I recently had a problem with an Allen-Bradley CompactLogix processor. The power went out, came back on, and the processor had faulted with a major fault, type 01, code 01. The fault message said “Power lost and restored in RUN mode”. There must be a way to disable this fault, and just have it go back into run mode so the operator can recover.
I Googled for the fault message and I got a link to a helpful forum thread. In that forum thread there was a link to a Rockwell Automation Knowledgebase Article that seemed to have the information I was looking for. I clicked the link and it told me I needed to login. That’s annoying enough, but fine. I tried my normal username and password for such sites, and that didn’t work. I went into my encrypted file and pulled out the username and password I’d saved for Rockwell Automation. That didn’t work.
Ok, fine. It had an option to email me my user name. I waited a few minutes for the email – yes the username I was using was OK. I clicked on the option to reset my password. Got the email, reset the password to the one I had saved anyway. Success! I was logged in, but it had forgotten what article I was trying to get to, so I went back to the original forum post and clicked the link again. “This article has been locked, or …” blah blah blah about a TechConnect ID. Ok, so I go to my profile page and click on the tab for TechConnect support IDs. None registered. Hmm, no obvious way to register one. I go to the other profile page… TechConnect ID… excellent! I enter that, click save, and now it needs my company name, address, etc. Ok, I enter that… but now I can’t click save. I have to go backwards, re-enter the TechConnect ID, and my company name and address, and then it saved. Ok, great!
I go back to the forum and click the link again. “This article has been locked, or …” What?!? I check my list of TechConnect IDs again, and there’s nothing there. This is really annoying me at this point. Oddly, under my name it now has the name of some Mexican company, and some place in Mexico. I check my profile page again and it all looks right, and I double-check the TechConnect ID. It’s right (and I know it’s right because I’ve used it to call Rockwell tech support recently).
I go back to Google and search again for the fault code, and I see a link to the Rockwell knowledge-base article. I click on that… same message! What’s going on here? How can Google even index a page that’s behind a sign-up wall and doesn’t even show you the page unless you have a valid TechConnect ID?
Going back to the original forum post, I did find some useful information in there, but obviously the knowledge-base article would have helped me the most. How far behind is Rockwell Automation’s online support? They’re still in the 90′s. I realize there are still a lot of people in this industry who are happier to pickup a phone and call their phone support in a situation like this, but as time goes on and the Millennial Generation continues entering the workforce, self-help focused people like myself are going to be more and more commonplace. We won’t settle for getting our questions answered in hours or even 30 minutes anymore; we want to solve our stupid problems like this in minutes or even seconds, and the technology is there to let us do it. Stop putting unnecessary barriers in our way! Rockwell Automation online support: FAIL!
By the way, I just spent 3 extra minutes and entered my technical question and answer over on ControlsOverload, a website for technical questions and answers about industrial automation. A website where you don’t have to sign in, and nothing is ever blocked behind any kind of wall. If Google can see it, so can you. This is the future of finding information on the internet. Rockwell Automation: Make it easy for me to use your hardware, and maybe I’ll buy more! You know what… here’s Beckhoff’s whole 350MB knowledge-base available for download so you can take it with you onsite when you don’t have an internet connection. Brilliant isn’t it? It’s called openness and it’s the new name of the game. Wake up!
Update (9 MAR 2010): The Global Quality Leader from Rockwell has contacted me and it looks like we’re going to have a constructive discussion about some of these issues (and he also gave me a different TechConnect ID to try). +1 to Rockwell for having their ears on!
Update (20 MAR 2010): I posted a write-up on Rockwell’s response here.
controlsoverload · frustrations · plc · rockwell-automation
Jeremy Sluyters · March 7, 2010 at 7:21 pm
So true!!! Love the rant!! Is anyone from Rockwell listening??
Joe Aarssen · March 25, 2010 at 9:39 pm
After reading this post for a second time and Jeremey’s follow up to it I find myself questioning whether or not it is short sighted to assume that opening up a knowledge base will impact a company’s revenue negatively. Especially one who’s core business is selling a product not services.
I buy a support agreement every year because it comes with my Toolkit (not picking on Rockwell – just sticking with the example). The toolkit I have to have because I need the software updates that come with it in order to do my job. If you’re a major purchaser of automation equipment chances you’re in the same boat. So you have us paying our money either way – any information you have to work harder to provide costs you revenue.
If you not a major purchaser of automation equipment chances are you may or may not purchase a support agreement. However I know many end users (the ones not buying support but determining hardware specifications) who choose to switch brands based upon lower ownership costs (no support fees, open interface for programming such as USB – no special cables, etc). So you could argue that you may loose some support revenue from your end user base but would probably pick up more revenue selling hardware (which again is your core business).
Maybe my economic model is off I’d love to know.
Scott Whitlock · March 26, 2010 at 6:02 am
I agree with you Joe. I think it comes back to recognizing that the lower the cost of a product, the more uses people will have for that product, so the more they will buy. Therefore if support costs less, then the automation equipment costs less, so ultimately sales would go up (this is because support is a complementary product to the equipment).
What’s happened at Rockwell is that the equipment division and the support division are separate entities and both have to make a profit, so instead of strategically lowering the price of one to drive sales of the other, they’re trying to maximize profit individually.
Whether we’re right or wrong, it’s still frustrating to use their support just because of all the barriers that are in place.