For the past two decades, automation technology has remained at a plateau. In 2013, developments are brewing to generate new growth inflection points. The Internet of Things (IoT) can literally monitor everything, generating massive amounts of data which will yield vast productivity benefits.
For industrial automation, the Cloud is a transformative approach that fundamentally changes how masses of IoT generated data can be used for real-time interaction. Major growth will result for companies that can demonstrate practical productivity results.
Smartphones and tablets are everywhere, with iPad, iPhone and Droid apps proliferating for just about anything you can imagine. In the automation world, the days when expert operators stayed behind control-room operator panels are quickly disappearing. Every technician can be an expert, working from any location with wireless connected tablets.
Emboldened by mobile communications trends, supposedly conservative industrial plants and factories have begun to accept the clear advantages of industrial wireless sensors and actuators.
I am continuing to predict that the automation supplier top-10 line-up will change, with mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. The question remains: which company will acquire whom? As China and India keep advancing, expect major acquirers to come from that direction.
Several growth opportunities are emerging this year. When the inflection points arrive, the leadership line-up will surely change.
Automation Top 50
Once again, Control magazine has published its list of the top-50 Automation companies in North America and the world. This is the only published list, and it always appears to be two years old – it is published in December and most people read it in January of the new year. I always bring this up with my friend Walt Boyes, the editor, and always his response is that the published results of many companies is for their fiscal year that ends in March, or even later. Since the results are tabulated from review of annual reports, old dates seem unavoidable.
In the complex industrial instrumentation, automation and controls business, Control discloses clearly what is included and what is not in their definition of revenues. It is creditable that their basic analysis methodology has not changed for the past several years. (See Table 1.)
In the top 10, Siemens, ABB and Emerson all held their global ranks. Schneider and Rockwell changed places and GE moved up significantly, while Mitsubishi and Danaher moved down.
The large companies move up and down a couple of places every year. Here is my view of my favourite growth companies on the global list:
After having separated from Fanuc, GE is now 8 at $3,46 B worldwide and Fanuc is now 19 at $1,6B. GE will acquire a large player soon.
Phoenix Contact has attained $2,13B revenues, far outpacing its old rival Weidmuller which is still at $870B. Wago at $645 M is close behind.
Other closely held Europeans are still growing: B&R $575M; Turck $559M; Pepperl+Fuchs $504B; Pilz $398M.
National Instruments has exceeded $1B in revenues, as predicted. Beckhoff has grown to $650M – well on its way to $1B. Advantech, the other industrial PC maker is close behind at $600M Ametek at $1,6B and Roper at $737M are making good progress. Cameron Valves is now at $1,6B and Belden at $288M.
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and commentator, writer, technology futurist and angel investor. His popular e-mail newsletter, JimPinto.com eNews, is widely read (with direct circulation of about 7000 and web-readership of two to three times that number). His areas of interest are technology futures, marketing and business strategies for a fast-changing environment, and industrial automation with a slant towards technology trends.
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