Automation Support

At Interstates, we pride ourselves on providing first-class support to our customers. That support begins with our dedicated support professionals, who have both knowledge and training in the automation and control systems that are present in the industries we serve. Each client and call is handled with the utmost importance, beginning with a methodology that seeks to understand the problem at the time. Once the problem is understood, including upstream and downstream impacts, our team works on resolution as quickly as possible, knowing that any interruption impacts your customers and bottom line. Our team closes out any support activity only when we know the problem has been resolved to your expectations.

Definitions

Business Hours | 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST excluding holidays (New Year's Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas)

After Hours | Calls taken between 5:00 PM and 8:00 AM Monday through Thursday and between 5:00 PM Friday and 8:00 AM Monday or during holiday listed above

Hourly Billing Rate | All incidents will be tracked for the hours a technician works on them and rounded to the nearest 15 minute increment. Clients will be billed for the total hours spent working on the incident at the hourly rate determined by the support contract level

Business Hours Minimum | Dependent upon support contract level, a one hour minimum may be charge for all incidents regardless of the total time spent to resolve the issue. If the total time exceeds one hour, the client will be billed at the total hours spent on the incident

After Hours Minimum | Dependent upon support contract level, a 4 hour minimum charge may be applied for any calls outside of normal business hours as defined above. This minimum would be regardless of hours spent on the incident unless they were to exceed 4 hours, then the total charge would be for actual time to resolve.

Guaranteed 24X7 Support | All clients electing any level support will be guaranteed access to our support team 24x7. In most cases this will be by connecting to a live support technician during business hours and receiving a call back within 30 minutes for any after hours calls. Clients with support contracts will be prioritized over non contracted clients both during and after business hours.

30-Minute Response Time | All calls from clients on a support contract will receive a response from our support team within 30 minutes of contacting our team. We will then work to resolve your issues as quickly as possible.

Prepaid Hours | Contracts that include prepaid support hours allow for budgeting of support costs over the life of the contract. These hours will be consumed accordingly to hours spent working on incidents and will be shown on monthly invoices as to how much has been consumed and is remaining.

Annual Site Visit | A support technician will come onsite for 2-3 days depending on site size to conduct preventive maintenance activities and work with local team to review system operation and performance.

Support Contract Levels

Bronze

Our introductory support package reduces the hourly support rate and removes any minimum charges when accessing support during business hours compared to no support contract. After-hours calls are offered with a reduced per-call rate and with a surcharge. It also includes a lane-specific support number, a feature that is included in all support packages. This package is designed for the needs of small clients with less complex systems that want the peace of mind of support from a trusted partner.

Silver

Our silver level package builds on the bronze package by offering no per-call minimum during business hours and introducing prepaid support hours. After-hours calls are offered with a reduced per-call rate and with a surcharge. This package is tailored for mid-size medium-complexity clients that want to ensure they have resources available 24/7/365. This is the minimum recommended support level for any customer utilizing I-Control.

Gold

Our top-of-the-line offering is an all-inclusive solution tailored to the needs of your site. It also adds in exclusive content such as quarterly control systems backups and quarterly system health checks.

Support Cost Candidates

*This is priced per site. Ask about our multi-site discount.

**Prepaid hours can be adjusted to meet customer needs at a discounted hourly rate. Please inquire for more information.

Support Feature Comparisons

Additional Support Services We Offer

Interstates offers additional services to maximize uptime, improve production efficiency, and reduce operating costs. These services can be purchased individually or added to any of our support contracts.

➕Annual Site Visit

One of our knowledgeable support technicians will spend 3 days or more onsite, completing a checklist of proactive activities to help ensure uptime and also working with staff to better understand and fully utilize the control system.

➕I-Control Licensing

This is an annual fee which will give your site access to the latest updates and features of the I-Control software suite.

➕Hazard Monitoring Audits

We have a dedicated team of instrumentation techs that can complete a thorough analysis of your hazard monitoring equipment, assisting with configuration as well as testing and suggestions for improvement.

➕Embedded Resources

In a pinch and need additional onsite support? We can send either automation support (PLC, HMI) or an electrical and instrumentation technician (instruments, electrical work, etc.) onsite for an agreed upon period to help daily with location needs.

Support Costs in Real Life

Let’s look at an example of the total costs when comparing a non contract site to a site electing for the varying levels of support. 

For this example, we will consider the following events happen during the course of a contract: 

During normal business hours, the site calls for support 13 times during the year. The total time spent working on those calls is 19 hours. Additionally, the site calls 6 times during after hours or weekends with a total of 6 hours spent on calls. Below is a breakdown of what the actual annual cost to the site would be for each of the different support levels.

Without a contract, the site would pay $12,280 during the course of the year for the billable hours they incurred. However, this is not factoring in that there would be no guarantee on 24 hour availability of support nor would there be any response time guarantee available. If additional support were needed beyond the example above, the annual cost would continue to escalate due to the higher per hour cost as well as the hourly minimums that are enforced.

Moving into the Bronze level of support would cost less than having no contract in this example. You would also have guaranteed 24-hour support with 30 minute response times. Additionally, you would have a dedicated support phone number to use that would be prioritized over any non-contract clients. This gives you the peace of mind that you have support available when you need it.

This example is the “right size” approach for our Silver level. The 25 prepaid hours perfectly cover the usage over the contract and the site would incur no additional charges. This also allows the location to properly budget for support over the course of the year and annual premiums can even be billed in installments throughout the year. This is also giving all of the benefits of the Bronze level with prioritized access to support and quick response times.

Finally, we offer our Gold support level. This is an all inclusive package that will cover all of the site’s needs over the contract. This includes unlimited hours of support 365 days per year, quarterly system backups and quarterly system health checks. This includes review of PLC and system error logs to evaluate the health of your systems. We thoroughly encourage this level for larger, more complex sites or for sites that may encounter higher employee turnover. Additionally, if you are new to I-Control or running a new control system, adding Gold support gives you a fixed cost for a year of support with the comfort of knowing that all of your support needs will be addressed with no surprise costs.

ServiceNow Incident Tracking System

ServiceNow is a third party support tool utilized by the Interstates team to keep accurate records of all support needs for our clients. From a client perspective, this allows you to access all of the support concerns that our team has handled for your facility. We can set up users with access to a client portal for your site where you can view all of the support information and also submit a ticket for support for low priority needs. Additionally, we can configure individual users to be emailed with all ticket information for an individual, location, or organization. Internally, this allows us to easily track incidents and look at historical information for a site. Additionally, any repeat or follow up work for an incident can quickly be referenced by ticket number to reduce the amount of time it takes to explain a situation. This in turn saves you time and makes it easier for us to get to a solution quicker. ServiceNow is available to all clients that are utilizing any of our support levels.

Call In Procedures

For all clients enrolled in one of our support plans, you will receive a document similar to the one below that will give you the information to contact support. This information will work for both business hours and after hours support. The example below would be for one of our Process clients; your call in number may be different depending on how we would best classify your business. Utilizing our phone system and dedicated numbers allows us to easily route your call to our team members most familiar with your site or industry.