Keywords: Industrial PC, IPC, Data, Industrie 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things, IIoT, Automation Suppliers, OEMs
While the market for industrial PCs (IPCs) remained flat over the last three years according to a new ARC Advisory Group study, ARC expects that the ever-increasing demand for data should drive additional market growth in the coming years. For many years, the number of IO points associated with industrial control and data acquisition applications has increased along with the sheer volume of data. ARC anticipates that concepts such as Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will lead to an even larger demand for data.
The industrial PC market as a whole has benefitted from this development, especially in developed economies. The North American market will show particularly robust growth. “The North American Market is still under-developed when it comes to IPCs, since most end users prefer PLC-based architectures. The IIoT initiative will drive demand and the acceptance of IPCs on the plant floor,” according to Florian Güldner, the principal author of ARC’s “Industrial PC Global Market Research Study”.
More Companies Offering IPCs
Over the past years, more automation suppliers have started to offer industrial PCs. Especially component-based automation suppliers have moved into the IPC market to establish themselves as solution providers.
These companies typically have deep know-how of the applications and use cases, which differentiates them clearly from product-focused suppliers often based in Taiwan.
Increasing Reliability
OEMs and especially end users place strong emphasis on the reliability and longevity of controllers. While, in general IPCs are designed to accommodate these increasingly more demanding requirements (including applications out in the field and in harsher in-plant conditions), this also challenges the suppliers as lifecycle support (spare parts, software updates, backward compatibility) gets increasingly complicated and costly.
North America Growing Fast
Currently, the IPC market in North America is small compared to the overall market size. Market acceptance for IPCs in North America lags that of Europe or Asia because manufacturers in North America still largely have a “PLC culture”. The established machinery sector is also less likely to use leading edge technology and there is a general shortage of skilled workers.
ARC expects these trends to shift in the next few years and for the North American market to grow faster than its European counterpart. This is partly due to the overall economic climate and partly due to the need for industrial organizations to make sense of the increasing volumes of data being generated on the plant and factory floor and by remote IIoT-connected devices.
For more information on this study, please visit our Market Research section.