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Friday, June 5, 2009 |
I was a little puzzled earlier this week when I received a press release from ARC Advisory Group about the services market with a spin about today's economic climate, but the report cited 2007 numbers. Turns out there is a report just out that includes 2008 numbers. According to Larry O'Brien, research director for process industries and study author, the worldwide market for supplier provided automation services worldwide stands at close to $17.3 billion for the 2008. He expects the market experience a compound annual growth rate of 7 percent for the next five years. He also cites ABB as maintaining the leading market share position for the year. ARC also identified Services as the fastest growing automation market segment in 2008. So there is no doubt as to why all the process automation suppliers have developed strong services offerings.
The report cites several results of the current economic crisis as contributing factors to the growth of the automation services sector, such as postponed capital projects, massive job reductions across all industries, and slowdowns in developing economies such as China and Latin America. Services provided by automation suppliers help end users take advantage of resident supplier expertise to reduce plant maintenance costs, operating costs and project costs, as well as fill the engineering and knowledge gap left by dramatic reductions in the end user workforce. The report noted that that ability to provide outsourced maintenance services was as a key factor in market leadership.
"As the largest automation services supplier, ABB offers its customers one of the broadest ranges of traditional and expanded service across the plant lifecycle, from field services, system evolution planning, engineering, and consulting to complete outsourced maintenance services, as well MAC and project management capabilities," continued Oâo[dot accent]Brien. "ABB's ability to reach into the entire scope of plant automation, combined with extensive resident industry knowledge and resources, put ABB in a good position to help their customers improve all aspects of operations."
The report states that the scope of automation supplier provided services expanded to fill the gaps created by the increasing labor shortage in the process industries, intensified by the impending wave of baby-boomer generation retirements and widespread organizational restructuring. Many end user companies, as well as EPC's, no longer maintain in-house automation and control engineering departments; they now look to automation suppliers to provide this knowledge and support.
According the ARC, one of the biggest trends over the past decade is for automation suppliers to fill the role of the MAC (Main Automation Contractors) on a project; this provides a single point of contact and responsibility for complex capital projects. Similar trends exist for plant electrification, through the MEC (Main Electrical Contractor) approach.
8:33:00 AM 
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Jim Cahill, marketing manager and blogger at Emerson Process Management, asks Should Engineers Be Social? This is after he introduced me to an engineer for an interview and said, "He's a social engineer. He looks at your shoes while he talks." I replied that the term "social engineer" is an oxymoron.
Actually, it's a serious subject. Previously today I posted a note about Linked In groups. These can be a valuable source of information to help engineers (and others) do their jobs. Twitter, the 140-character blogging platform, has started numerous conversations in the automation community. There are blogs (such as this), YouTube video interviews and demonstrations and many more sources of information. Yet, many IT departments block such sites from access by engineers (hmm, sort of sounds like a big country in the news this week). I think these things are valuable, and we need to overturn the "anal retentive" nature of so many managers. I'm in the media business now, and I see the mix of media continuing to grow. Print magazines (and newspapers) that fill a need for certain types of information will continue to thrive. But there are other types of information and connectedness that fit the laptop/iPhone people, too.
Thanks for bringing up the point. Oh, even though Jim's an engineer, he looks you in the eye (as did his buddy, by the way). I'm not that social, but I didn't finish my engineering degree, either. I was too anxious to do things. But the lesson from my engineering school days that stayed with me the most was a column in the University of Cincinnati newspaper about "you can tell the freshman engineering students a mile away--white socks, slide rules dangling from their belts and big heavy briefcases to hold all their books." I went out and bought colored socks that afternoon ;-}
7:26:45 AM
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A press release for a new product from Phoenix Contact hit my inbox a couple of days ago, and immediately I thought this was significant enough to write up for Automation Gear. As if by fate, I visited the company yesterday and spent some time with Greg Dixson the marketing manager for that product line who took me into a deeper dive on it.
The product, mGuard, is an Ethernet network device (either DIN rail or PCI card form factor) that sits at "layer 3" above the control network but under the IT level. The one device is a router, firewall and VPN (virtual private network). It is a product that in itself brings the IT and automation worlds together. It speaks the language of IT, and as a matter of fact has much appeal for that function. It also allows automation engineers to build their Ethernet networks and have a level of protection previously hard to obtain. This is especially true of control and automation devices that are not Microsoft Windows PC based--think PLCs, PACs and other intelligent devices that are hung on an Ethernet network without built-in VPN or other protection.
7:16:05 AM
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I just heard about a new Forum on LinkedIn. To be honest, I don't search for new groups there, but if you are interested in safety, join the Safety Automation Group (if you're on Linked In, if not, you can join that to and link back to me).
I'm on several other Groups, including DeltaV, Reliability, Automation Engineers, MESA International. These are actually very much like the old groups on list serve from the pre-Web days of the Internet. Trouble is, not enough people contribute to make them worthwhile. If you can spare a little time out of your evenings, join a group and participate.
7:05:28 AM
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© Copyright 2009 Gary Mintchell.
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