Steady growth forecast for automation market

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Oct 25, 2002

The EMA market for automation products and services for discrete industries is expected to grow at a healthy compounded annual growth rate of 6.6% over the next five years.

The EMA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) market for automation products and services for discrete industries is expected to grow at a healthy compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.6% over the next five years.

This market was over $8 billion in 2001 and is forecasted to reach over $11 billion in 2006 according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.

In Europe, manufacturers are continuing to be cautious as their economic strength declines.

"While the current slowdown in the economy has severely impacted the industrial automation business in the EMA region, many bright spots are ahead with automation products and services for the discrete industries.

High growth is projected for Eastern European and Nordic countries.

Germany is the largest country for discrete products and services in the region and will also outpace the market growth rate", according to ARC Senior Analyst Himanshu Shah, the principal author of ARC's "Total automation business for discrete industries EMA outlook, market analysis and forecast through 2006".

Advancement in technologies brings more functionality, ease of use, and lower cost to automation products and makes their adoption easier among users.

Wide acceptance of the PC as an integration platform for HMI, logic solving, motion control, and vision systems make use of automation easier across the plant floor.

Progress in establishing networking standards, a single programming and diagnostic environment, and standards for data exchange facilitates integration of various automation elements in a consistent manner, further fuel the growth.

Users strongly believe that leading edge automation is the key to stay competitive.

Users are under pressure for better quality products with more variety and quickly brought to the market at a lower cost.

This translates into a need for better automation and greater flexibility, infusing new technologies and integration of plant floor to business processes.

This situation will increase use of new automation products and services across many industries in the EMA region.

Automation suppliers are facing special challenges to keep revenue growing while maintaining profit margins.

The marketplace is fiercely competitive with declining revenues as prices keep plunging.

This study reveals how suppliers of each class of automation products face their own unique market characteristics and challenges for growth.

The report discusses these characteristics and challenges, and recommends strategies to remain successful in this tough economic and market environments.

The study analyses market data of a broad spectrum of automation products, including programmable logic controller (PLC), general motion control (GMC), computer numeric control (CNC), AC drives, human machine interface (HMI), operator interface terminal (OIT), material handling control systems software (MHCS), and collaborative production management (CPM), among others.

Additional information on this study can be found on the ARC website.