Automation suppliers saw their revenues drop by 2.5 percent during the second quarter of 2016. Depressed oil and commodity prices, and to a lesser extent, the strong dollar, continued to rein in the performance of the automation market. Process suppliers continue to suffer most from exposure to low oil prices, while discrete automation suppliers fared better, thanks to stronger investment activity in the electronics and automotive industries in Asia and North America.

As the latest move in its ongoing initiative to modernize the state's grid, California's Public Utility Commission (PUC) recently issued a decision to update state policy related to distribution grid interconnection of distributed energy resources (DER). Interconnection is the process by which utilities connect DER hardware and software to the outside electrical power system.

As their business processes evolve, internal stakeholders across a variety of different industries rely increasingly on SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) technology to support a growing number of higher-level applications. The demands on system functionality increase dramatically, and the criticality of the SCADA system increases in kind. This accelerates system obsolescence and shortens the useful lifespan for legacy systems.

As well as the having the largest economy and population in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is the region's biggest producer of crude oil and natural gas. However, lackluster investment over the last two decades coupled with rising domestic energy consumption levels have led to a worsening supply/demand situation. Indonesia already has to import significant amounts of crude oil and refined oil products, and industry experts forecast that the country, the world's leading LNG exporter until as recently as 2005, will become a net gas importer within the next few years.

By embedding smart sensors into their AC induction motors that can communicate with IIoT gateways at the network edge (such as AC drives), Siemens, ABB, and other leading industrial motor suppliers are enabling new, more advanced asset management options for these often-critical manufacturing assets. These include supplier's remote condition monitoring and/or predictive maintenance services.

A rise in the middle class segment, particularly in developing economies, results in energy demand growing faster than overall global population growth. In general, developing countries are highly dependent upon imported oil and other fossil fuels. However, as these economies mature, there will be a transition to cleaner sources of energy.

ARC Advisory Group recently conducted a survey on current practices and trends in alarm management. We also wanted to learn how end users, suppliers, consultants, and system integrators are approaching the often challenging issue of migrating existing alarm management applications. Alarm management in general continues to be a big issue in process plants, driven largely by the need to conform to current standards and best practices, like ISA 18.2, EEMUA 191, and IEC 62682.

The investment behavior of companies in different industries varies strongly. In this periodic report, ARC Advisory Group looks at a number of different manufacturing industries to identify trends in capital expenditures (CapEx) and their drivers. We calculate our CapEx Index using the same rigorous methodology we use for the ARC Automation Index, which is based on publically available data provided by major companies (but end user companies, in this case). This report also includes ARC's contextual comments on the individual industries.

As new technology approaches, both Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Industrie 4.0 provide opportunities for owner-operators to improve overall business performance, including asset performance management (APM). This includes operational and business process improvements through removing waste and/or faster workflow. For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), IIoT offers new sources of revenue by extending the company's business model into aftermarket services

China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) targets reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and corruption across manufacturing sectors, including oil & gas. Unlike previous management-level anti-corruption activities, this quiet reform is taking place at all levels of the country's oil & gas sector. While China is a net importer of oil, the slide in oil prices has had a negative effect on the revenues and profits of China's national oil companies (NOCs) and private oil & gas companies alike, making systematic top-down reform necessary to boost the sector.