Worldwide Market for Process Automation Systems (PASs)

Staff -- Control Engineering, 10/1/2002

The pharmaceutical and food and beverage industries will continue to be the highest growth sectors for the worldwide process automation systems (PASs) market during 2001-06, according to ''PAS Worldwide Outlook, Market Analysis & Forecast Through 2006'' by ARC Advisory Group (Dedham, MA).

The study reports this trend is caused mainly by the ongoing transition of these industries from less-sophisticated PLC-based automation to PC-based, batch management, CPM and other PASs, and also due to the increasing overlap between process and discrete architectures, and a resulting increase in hybrid systems.

Larry O'Brien, ARC's research director for process industries and the study's author, adds that, ''The total PAS market grew by less than 1% between 2000 and 2001. Through 2006, the total industry will only grow at the average annual rate of 3.4%.''

For more information, visit www.arcweb.com.