According to a newly released report from Frost & Sullivan, the forthcoming new business and operational models desire solution providers to move to digital solutions as the demand for new outcomes and higher insight develops.
An additional trend in the market is the industry is moving towards solution integration, enterprise-scale contextualization of insights and multi-site deployments. All of which create an intense collaboration between IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology), which flattens out the traditional layered hierarchical architectures present in process and discrete industries.
Global Automation Industry Outlook, 2017, is part of Frost & Sullivan’s Industrial Automation and Process Control Growth Partnership subscription. The study examines the market for distributed control system (DCS), programmable logic controller (PLC), supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA), process safety system, machine safety systems, human-machine interface (HMI), variable frequency drive (VFD), operator training simulators (OTS), general motion control (GMC), sensors and transmitters, flowmeters, manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise asset management (EAM), and product lifecycle management (PLM) across key process and discrete industries, such as power, oil and gas, chemicals and petrochemicals, food and beverage, aerospace and defense, and automotive.
A major restraint to the global automation industry was the weakening of investments in the oil and gas segment, according to the report. With oil prices recovering from late 2016, cautious optimism is obvious in most process industries, and investments are expected to see positive growth in the second half of 2017.
In the report, the automation market themes for the next two to three years included:
- Plant-floor analytics;
- Convergence of sensing, control, and information platforms;
- Collaborative robotics in production;
- Adaptive OT cybersecurity for industrial networks;
- Augmented reality on the shop floor;
- Hybridized machines to unlock the benefits of both additive and subtractive manufacturing;
- Digital twins, or software replication of physical assets, to plan for equipment maintenance and prevent unplanned downtime;
- Edge analytics and intelligence that can filter out non-critical data;
To purchase the Global Automation Industry Outlook, 2017: Digital Transformation Reshapes Every Industrial Market and Creates New Pivots of Growth for Automation Solution Providers report or to register for a consultation with Frost & Sullivan, visit the company’s webpage.
