Dedham, Massachusetts; December 9, 2007: Process industry automation continues to experience solid worldwide growth as plants must continue to improve performance. End users facing globalization are driving plant performance at a level that would be inconceivable without modern process automation systems and business processes. As a result, automation systems for process industries will experience healthy growth. The worldwide market for process automation systems is expected to grow at a com-pounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% over the next five years. The market was nearly $30 billion in 2006 and is forecasted to grow to over $47 billion in 2011, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.
Process automation technologies help achieve industry business objectives for im-proved plant utilization, yields, product quality, availability, safety, flexibility, and delivery performance. “Constant cost pressure in process industries leaves no alterna-tive but to improve plant performance, and process automation technologies play a key role in achieving this,” according to Senior Analyst Himanshu Shah, the principal author of ARC’s “Automation Systems for Process Industries Worldwide Outlook.”
Globalization Drives Growth
Many trends are emerging as a result of globalization, which means more markets, more products, and more partners. Opportunities expand, but so do the challenges for global manufacturers. Companies are selling their products around the world and they are facing competition from a growing number of global players.
One reason the automation systems business will do so well over the next few years is the huge list of challenges and changing conditions in the global business environment that manufacturers must respond to. These challenges include globalization, the need to act quickly and with agility to emerging market opportunities, dealing with a shrinking base of educated and well trained personnel, and increasing pressure to improve financial performance. These challenges are driving a significant change in the way that end users approach everything they use to control production, engineering, operations, and maintenance across the manufacturing enterprise.
Automation is a ticket to be a participant in this flat world, and therefore, process auto-mation products are expected to have robust growth as they are used across industrial segments, ranging from Food & Beverage and Metals & Mining to Chemical and Water & Waste industries.
Regional Scenarios
ARC takes a look at the leading indicators shaping the growth of the global automation marketplace, from capacity utilization to productivity and industrial production, and how these will affect the market in the coming years. Despite troubles in the US and Canadian economies, the global outlook for automation and manufacturing remains bright. Higher energy prices continue to contribute to increased capital investments and large project backlogs for oil, gas and refining companies. The pharmaceutical and biotech industries remain strong, and growth in Asia and other developing regions remain high. Asia remains the center of growth, but the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America continue to show strong growth as well.
About ARC: Founded in 1986, ARC Advisory Group has grown to become the Thought Leader in Manufacturing and Supply Chain solutions. No matter how com-plex your business issues, our analysts have the expert industry knowledge and first-hand experience to help you find the best answer. We focus on simple yet critical goals: improving your return on assets, operational performance, total cost of ownership, project time-to-benefit, and shareholder value.
