Study to focus on US machine safety market

The market for programmable safety systems is growing at a much faster rate than originally expected.

The market for programmable safety systems is growing at a much faster rate than originally expected.

Forecast to increase at 46.9% between 2003 and 2006, recent changes in design and implementation processes have increased demand for programmable safety systems.

In speaking with automation suppliers, VDC has discovered that this surge has been predominantly driven by three developing trends.

The first is safety standards - countries within Europe started developing machine safety standards long before North America.

Because the European community is further advanced in this regard, this region has significant influence regarding the migration toward uniform international machine safety regulations, including IEC61508 and EN954.

Secondly, North America has traditionally used 120V AC power.

However, the same global influences that have affected standards have proliferated the use of 24V DC power in safety automation equipment.

As a result, opportunities for safety automation vendors could multiply as customers look to either retrofit or replace existing systems.

The third factor is the emergence of safety bus networks.

Industries are increasingly realising the value and cost savings of implementing safety bus networks in manufacturing processes.

For instance European auto OEMs, such as Volkswagen and BMW, have installed digital safety networks in an effort to reduce costs of robot installations.

Contrary to hard-wired safety systems that employ mechanical relays, safety bus networks digitally monitor the status of safety equipment through software platforms.

VDC's new edition of this study will track the progress of programmable safety systems and other market forces in the machine automatic safeguarding industry.

It will assess, quantitatively and qualitatively, market demand for machine automatic safeguarding components, equipment and networking.

The study will identify current and emerging applications for machine safeguarding products, and will provide detailed analyses of the technical, developmental and regulatory issues facing this industry.

These include: in-depth analysis of North American and European market demand for machine automatic safeguarding products; vertical market and application estimates and forecasts for all product types; detailed OEM/integrator and end-user analysis evaluating the opportunities and requirements to support existing and emerging applications; industry structure and influences, including detailed profiles and share analysis of leading and emerging machine automatic safeguarding suppliers; and updates on current and emerging standards in North America and Europe.

VDC is now accepting founding sponsors for this research.

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