We'e all seen a few of those oscillations between full in-house engineering and outsourcing everything. Every few years, management consultants talk owners or CEOs into outsourcing - some times later, when the business went downhill, those consultants' colleagues »save« the companies by convincing the boss of hiring engineering staff again. Then the cycle starts again. A few considerations may help avoiding the most common mistakes.
Plant infrastructures in many industries have been working more or less unchanged for years, sometimes decades. While modern industrial communication systems could improve internal processes, a recent analysis from Frost&Sullivan states a conservative attitude toward the implementation of new technologies.
The European programmable logic controllers (PLC) market witnessed a heavy decline in growth in 2009, owing to the recession of 2008. However, it made a strong recovery in 2010 with all major market participants in Europe experiencing high growth. A new Frost&Sullivan study anticipates continued moderate growth, under some conditions.
Various players from the field communication area have joined their efforts and intend to co-sponsor the second annual Field Communication Lounge exhibit at two of the world’s largest automation trade shows.
Industrial automation systems can be quite versatile - take them out of the factory and beside a rail track and even Britain’s or Germany’s infamous trains might run like an oiled automation line. In order to prove this hypothesis, a transportation company and an automation expert join forces.
While the Scandinavian industrial markets in themselves are more or less negligible, they nevertheless are very interesting as they are considered stepping stones for the North-East European markets. This might be the driving motive behind the acquisiotion of the Finnish company Trimaster Oy by German packaging specialist Multivac.
Strange times: traditionally Hardware-oriented companies are currently looking towards Software. For some, this may be a mistake, but in the area of industrial automation, a fitting software solution might just smoothly top off the portfolio.
A rather good indicator for a booming electronics industry is the need for casings, housings, seals and many other things made of plastic and rubber. It is no surprise that China has a huge demand for these kinds of materials, but Central Europe is profiting from the situation.
Fieldbuses have been dead for a few years now even though not everyone in the industry noticed that. Everything’s Ethernet now and even the toughest defenders of the old ways have to admit now that the Fieldbus times are over.
Even in factory and process automation, systems have to become smaller in order to meet the demands of today’s field infrastructure. A recently announced co-operation among two Swiss/German companies is supposed to provide an impulse for miniaturized field devices.
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