Fifty automation companies worth watching

By Walt Boyes, Editor in Chief, and Larry O’Brien, Research Director Process Automation, ARC Advisory Group

It has been getting harder and harder to produce a Process Automation Top Fifty for North America. In the first place, the lines are blurring between process, batch and discrete automation, and in the second place, the automation business, along with all manufacturing, has become increasingly global in scope. For this edition of the Top Fifty, we’ve rewritten the rules. Here’s what we are including in our definition of the fifty largest companies:

• North American revenues, broken out from global revenues
• Process automation systems and related hardware software and services
• PLC business, as well as related hardware, software, services, I/O and bundled HMI
• Other control hardware components, such as third party I/O, signal conditioners, intrinsic safety barriers, networking hardware, unit controllers and single and multiloop controllers
• Process safety systems
• SCADA systems for oil and gas, water and wastewater, and power distribution
• AC drives
• General motion control systems (GMC)
• Computer numerical control (CNC) systems
• Process field instrumentation, such as temperature and pressure transmitters, flowmeters, level transmitters and associated switches
• Analytical equipment, including process electrochem, all types of IR technology, gas chromatographs for industrial manufacturing and related products
• Control valves, actuators and positioners
• Discrete sensors and actuators
• All kinds of automation-related software, from advanced process control, simulation and optimization to third-party HMI, plant asset management, production management (MES), ERP integration packages from the major automation suppliers and similar software
• All other automation-related services provided by the automation suppliers
• Condition-monitoring equipment and systems
• Ancillary systems, such as burner management systems, QCSs for pulp and paper, etc.

What we’re not including are

• Pumps and motors
• Robotics
• Material-handling systems
• Supply chain management software
• Building automation systems
• Fire and security systems
• Processing equipment such as mixers, vessels, heaters, etc., as well as process design licenses from suppliers that have engineering divisions
• Electrical equipment such as low-voltage switchgear, etc.

We’ve found it nearly impossible to achieve a hard number for “process automation” only, so we’re reporting all automation, and where we have a good idea of what the ratio between process and discrete is, we’ll show that. The data is for 2005, as 2006 numbers are not yet available for many companies.