With today's increasing need for manufacturing intelligence, it's critical to have real-time or near real-time access to actionable, in-context information about the performance of each manufacturing operation. Companies need to be able tap into the vast amount of process and operations data, business information, and other data now available to them to be able to make better operational and business decisions.
Machine vision technology entered China's market about 30 years ago. While, initially, there were very limited applications for the technology, the market has grown steadily over the past 10 years, growing to over $175 million annually based on ARC Advisory Group estimates. Even in 2015, during the economic downturn, the market still maintained good growth, driven by demand from industries such as electronics and semiconductors, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, and – to a lesser extent – automotive.
The third-party logistics (3PLs) market encompassing non-asset-based transportation, warehousing, and integrated supply chain services experienced a further decline in revenues in the fourth quarter of 2015. (As ARC has observed, the market has been declining over the past few quarters.) This decline was primarily due to the volatile nature of the market and the continued strengthening of the dollar.
Summary
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will change the way industrial organizations generate, collect, and analyze data. Data will be generated faster and in greater volume than ever before – IIoT data is Big Data for industry. This will require the current plant information infrastructure to evolve.
Currently, tens of thousands of control systems that are well past their expected lifespans are still installed and operating in industrial plants around the world. Often, however, plant personnel must make extraordinary efforts to keep the aging technology functioning without significant system downtime or production outages. This includes scavenging replacement parts from other systems or obtaining them from sometimes-questionable internet sources.
In recent years, hundreds of drug shortages have been reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In response, FDA is working with pharmaceutical manufacturers to help them identify and implement new, scientifically sound technologies. The goal is not just to produce quality medicines that are consistently safe and effective, but also to implement processes that can help prevent drug shortages.
A session at the recent ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida focused on leveraging smart field systems to create value in process industries. Several presentations provided end user perspectives on employing smart sensors to conduct multiphase flow measurement, provide safe wireless gas detection, and leverage IIoT-enabled solutions to enhance operational performance in upstream oil & gas.
The number, size, and frequency of major automation projects may have decreased recently due to such factors as the low price of oil; but, if any-thing, the importance of executing these projects correctly has increased. At the recent ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, one session focused on managing major automation projects to drive business value. Both the presentations and lively discussions that followed made it clear that it's important to pay close attention to the details right from the start.
At the recent ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, the sessions on smart connected product design and manufacturing attracted a significant number of attendees and generated considerable discussion. This demonstrates the strong interest ARC is currently seeing in connected product design and connected and intelligent factory ecosystems.
Higher level process automation networks evolve almost in lock-step with information technology (IT), adopting internet protocols and the higher speeds of 100MB and 1 GB Ethernet, which are now commonplace. At the field device level in the process industries, however, network technology remains essentially the same as it was in the 1990s or even the 1980s.