AMNYTT Nr 1 - 2013 | Page 34
ARC Rapport
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AMNYTT #1
ARC Insights, Page 2
For 2013, the VDMA again expects growth of around 4 percent. The bad
news for automation suppliers is the sharp decrease in capacity utilization.
While suppliers profited in the past (except 2009) from automation
investments by the machine builders due to high capacity utilization rates
of over 85 percent, that trend is now down sharply. At the end of 2012, the
rate is expected to drop below the critical limit of 80 percent, and the slow
growth expected for 2013 will not be enough to push it back to the high
levels of 2011 and early 2012.
Industry 4.0: The Latest Steam Engine?
“Industry 4.0” is a compelling, but not well-understood term that has been
tossed around recently. As the fourth stage of industrial development after
the invention of the steam engine, mass production, and industrial automation, Industry 4.0 describes the merger of physical and virtual worlds in
which raw materials and related information permeate manufacturing
Automation suppliers see Industry 4.0
as a roadmap for the development of
future information-enabled products.
Some are using it to explain to
customers how their products and
solutions can help create the
manufacturing processes of the future.
processes; accompanying products through each
step of their respective lifecycles.
Industry 4.0
relates to the equally compelling, but also not wellunderstood term, “Internet of Things.”
Visionary automation suppliers see Industry 4.0 as
a roadmap for developing future informationenabled products.
Some use it to explain to
customers how their products and solutions can help create the
manufacturing processes of the future. The idea is that materials will carry
information about how they want to be manufactured and inform each
process along the way what is to be done (“Robot: please paint me red!”).
Although RFID tags have been doing this for decades, future tags will
handle much more information (think “big data”) and this information will
be more tightly integrated into a product’s entire lifecycle rather than just a
few processes. However, while these discussions suggest a revolution, only
evolutionary steps are likely to move the industry in this direction.
Hardware Returns to the Spotlight
Software may be the driver of Industry 4.0, but industry needs fast and reliable hardware to support this lofty vision. This year, hardware returned to
the forefront, thanks to Siemens’ announcement of the first major upgrade
to its 16-year-old SIMATIC S7 platform. The S7-1500 is a whole new con-
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2013