General motion control market set to rebound

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 7, 2002

After years of growth, the worldwide general motion control market experienced double digit decline in 2001 as manufacturers across all industries reduced their capital expenditure.

After years of growth, the worldwide general motion control (GMC) market experienced double digit decline in 2001 as manufacturers across all industries reduced their capital expenditure in the face of a recessionary economy.

Although the market will continue to decline through 2002, it is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.7% over the next five years.

The market was $3976 million in 2001, and is forecasted to be over $5236 million in 2006, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.

Electronics and semiconductor industries, leading contributors to growth of the GMC market in recent years, were hampered by substantially reduced demands from telecommunications and PC industries.

"Economic rebound and growth in other manufacturing industries, however, will fuel demand for electronic motion control that brings more flexibility, better accuracy, greater productivity, and easier maintenance compared to mechanical or hydraulic solutions", according to ARC Senior Analyst Himanshu Shah, the principal author of ARC's "General motion control worldwide outlook, market analysis and forecast through 2006".

With more functionality incorporated in GMC equipment, it becomes more complex to use.

New GMC equipment, however, comes with better software tools to make programming, installation, commissioning, trouble-shooting, and maintenance tasks easier.

Web connectivity for remote monitoring, standard network interface to other automation equipment, and enterprise connectivity are becoming common features within GMC solutions to increase value and further ease-of use.

Constantly evolving OEM machine configurations and increased performance puts new demands on GMC equipment and their connectivity scheme.

As OEMs ship their machines globally, GMC suppliers establish highly technical support infrastructure worldwide.

With high power digital signal processors, intelligent drives are more powerful and ideal for distributed architecture.

Distributed architecture is spreading rapidly in high power drive applications where incremental cost of distributed intelligence is minimal.

PC-based automation in light machine applications, however, pushes for centralised architecture with bus-based controllers as they offer low cost, tightly integrated solutions.

Distributed and centralised architectures will continue to exist as they both offer value.

Broader solution offerings, miniaturisation of products, one stop shopping, and increased coordination between machine and motion control design are other factors which are shaping the GMC market.

Among these market dynamics, suppliers are implementing various strategies that are based on the GMC platforms, diverse technology available for GMC solutions, and varying demands from users.

The GMC market will experience another declining year in 2002, but this time Europe will be the hardest hit compared to North America and Japan.

The world regions also show different characteristics among users of GMC equipment.

Whereas users place higher emphasis on ease-of-use in North America, higher performance and newer technology are stressed by European users.

Users' loyalty toward local suppliers also differs in the world regions.

Although demand for broader solutions is common in all regions, European OEMs have greater integration capabilities and therefore seek best of breed components that can offer higher value and craft leading edge solutions.

Further information on this study can be found on the ARC Advisory Group website.