Control Engineering 2016 System Integration Study
Five findings on integrating systems
Amanda Pelliccione
6/15/2016
Respondents to the Control Engineering 2016 System Integration Study identified five high-level findings regarding the impact of integrating systems today:
- Project involvement: The majority of respondents (74%) perform system integration services, either in-house or to third parties; on average, these respondents reported working on 16 system integration projects per year. The remaining 26% hire system integrators and reported outsourcing an average of eight projects per year.
- Average project size: The average system integration project size that respondents are involved with is about $218,000—a decrease of 11.4% since 2015—with 17% of system integration projects valued at more than $500,000.
- On time deliverables: Over the past 12 months, an average of 72% of system integration projects respondents were involved in were on time—a 9.3% increase from 2015. Primary causes of delays fell on unexpected changes in scope, decisions, and late approvals.
- Project effectiveness: Half of respondents said automation system integration has been highly effective in their facilities or in the facilities in which they were involved, and another 42% rated it as moderately effective. Respondents traditionally measure project effectiveness by increased productivity levels (61%), on budget delivery (60%), and on time delivery (58%).
- Challenges: System integrators continue to struggle with hiring engineering talent for system integration (49%) and industry experience (40%). Other challenges include client relations (38%), a lack of communication (35%), and keeping up with changes to regulations/codes and standards (33%).
Access the full 2016 System Integration report for additional findings.
