Keeping an Eye on Technology Futures, No Hidden Agendas, New Attitudes, No Platitudes!
Industrial instrumentation and controls has always been a hotbed of new products - improved sensors, amplifiers, displays, recorders, control elements, valves, actuators and other widgets and gismos.
Automation has a few key segments. In the 1970's, the original DCS was developed by a team of engineers at Honeywell. Also in the '70s the first PLC was the brainchild of inventor Dick Morley. These two industry segments alone represent several billion dollars in annual revenue. Several innovative startups developed HMI PC software. Innovative sensors and actuators came from several key companies.
In a fragmented business, most innovators get stuck at growth plateaus and get bought out. But some continue to generate independent growth and success. My new article in Automation.com traces the history of key growth segments in industrial automation markets.
Extrapolating automation history forward is an interesting challenge. In the past, growth inflection points have developed from new products and leadership (DCS, PLC, sensors, software). Today, growth is coming from global expansion and services, but that's only incremental.
A new surge of growth will come through new technology (perhaps nanotech sensors, or wireless), production at the lowest cost for global distribution, and fast time-to-market (not impeded by standards committees and antiquated management conservatism). The managers, innovators and visionaries who recognize the possibilities will become the new leaders of tomorrow.
