Maintaining automation and squeezing ever-more productivity from it requires a number of technically savvy hardware and software specialists these days. Because hiring more of these people is never in the budget, automation professionals have been increasingly turning to their suppliers for the expertise necessary to maintain their companies’ huge investments in hardware and software.

But is the service and support that they are receiving satisfactory? Are manufacturing companies really getting what they need from their suppliers? To find out, Automation World surveyed its readers electronically in August, asking them whether they are satisfied with the support that they have been receiving. Not only does this special report present the results, but it also explains how suppliers view the data.

To conduct the study, Automation World recruited participants by publishing an invitation in an e-newsletter that it publishes several times a week (go to www.automationoworld.com/newsletters to subscribe). The invitation appeared twice as a regular news item that included a link to a Web-based survey on SurveyMonkey and promised that participants would be automatically enrolled in a drawing for an iPod touch. In all, a total of 260 responded.

When participants arrived at the Web site, they were asked nine questions. The first asked whether they work for a manufacturing or production facility or for a machine designer or builder. The next three questions asked about hardware—whether they are satisfied with their suppliers’ product support, what they like about their policies and actions, and what suppliers could do better. The next three questions repeated the questions for software support, and the last two asked whether this writer could contact them.

Of the 260 respondents, 70 percent work for manufacturing or production facilities, and the remaining 30 percent are employees of machine builders and designers. Overall, 78 percent said that they were satisfied with the support that they are receiving from their hardware suppliers, and 21 percent said that they are not. Responses from production facilities and machine builders were roughly the same: 79 percent of producers and 77 percent of builders expressed satisfaction, whereas 21 percent and 22 percent, respectively, expressed dissatisfaction.

The rates of satisfaction dropped noticeably for support from software suppliers, however. Overall, 70 percent of respondents report satisfaction, and 27 percent, dissatisfaction. Not only is the rate of satisfaction with software support 8 percentage points lower than that for hardware support, but the rate of dissatisfaction is 6 percentage points higher. As was the case for hardware support, the rates of satisfaction are roughly the same among both producers and builders, at 69 percent and 71 percent, respectively. But the rates of dissatisfaction are slightly higher at production facilities: 28 percent to 24 percent.

Overall, “80 percent is a good number,” says Gary Klosak, the very satisfied information technology director at Chicago-based Kolcraft Enterprises Inc., a global manufacturer of toys and baby products. Although the score suggests that service and support in the automation industry as a whole have room to improve, “it is saying most vendors are meeting requirements.”

Surprise, surprise

Even so, the statistics have generated a fair amount of surprise both here at Automation World and among the suppliers, albeit for different reasons. “The results were much more positive than I expected,” admits Gary Mintchell, editor in chief of this magazine. His recollection from a little more than a decade ago when he worked in manufacturing is that users typically complain a lot about the price and availability of support, especially for software. He is gratified to find that the situation has improved.

On the other hand, some of the large automation manufacturers whom we recruited to comment on the survey results were surprised to see satisfaction so low. “We are just not used to seeing such low levels,” says Al Corcoran, marketing manager for technical service and support at supplier Siemens Industry Inc., in Alpharetta, Ga. In his internal surveys, his customers rate satisfaction in the high 90s. Milwaukee-based automation and controls vendor Rockwell Automation Inc. reports similar results.

Corcoran, at Siemens, makes an important point about method. “Clearly, the survey methodology will affect results,” he says. Unlike the informal survey conducted by this magazine, his surveys are more formal, administered by a third party and generated randomly from cases that have been closed. “We receive a 41 percent return rate on our surveys, which translates into roughly 14,000 responses per year.”

As surprised as automation manufacturers are by the low satisfaction levels in the survey just conducted by Automation World , they are not ...