Motion control market set to grow

Senior analyst Himanshu Shah, the principle author of ARC's 'General Motion Control Worldwide Outlook', says: "Emerging economies in Asia, such as China, India, and a few other Asian countries, continue to make investments in automation as a result of strong domestic demand for production machinery. The growth opportunities in the Asian market will provide motion control suppliers a means to sustain the business until the global machinery market recovers." The GMC market will continue to expand on a worldwide scale during the next five years due to a continued infusion of capital for automation in many regions and industries, Shah believes. Fierce global competition increasingly causes manufacturers to allocate investments in automation to drive down costs and raise productivity by increasing agility and flexibility in their manufacturing operations. The comforting news for automation suppliers, he says is that the worst economic period is probably behind them although he warns that new order activity remains sluggish, and will have to pick up significantly for a complete recovery in the automation market. Even though emerging Asian economies provided clear evidence of a recovery for most automation suppliers, GMC suppliers have a relatively small market in these economies, and therefore the uptick in the Asian market was insufficient to compensate for the severe declines in advanced economies.