FANUC's policy I find is, unless your a large automotive or similar large manufacturing entity, 'screw' you - pay thru the nose and lump it. Their big customers get all the service and discount and the rest of us can go to hell. I have a lot of contact with various system integrators who are increasingly frustrated with FANUCs getting 'blood from a stone' mentality - only thing you can do is to lobby all who use FANUC to consider switching to other robot suppliers
This hasn't really been my experience. I think it comes down to who your rep is over at FANUC. I think my company got lucky in that regard. We're not a large integrator in any sense of the word (JR or Ellison probably do as much business in a week as we do all year) but FANUC does a pretty good job of meeting our needs in terms of pricing and support. I sometimes worry that we're too demanding for a company that is this small, but I'm not complaining about the results. It may also be that we just know how to work the system over there.
We've only been a FANUC integrator for the last two years, but I have to say that in those two years I've seen them personally address most of the issues that I've had with them. For such a large company to pay attention to the little guys like us is impressive.
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