ARC report confirms ABB continuing DCS market dominance

ARC Advisory Group is one of those typically American consultancy organisations that produces reports describing technology trends and competitive analyses that are then sold to the suppliers in the industry. Undoubtedly they are also employed to produce specific reports at the request of single specific clients, but the main reports publicised for public sale are the overall market surveys. Without paying a lot of money, the general public don’t get to see these.

All the data from the reports is generalised, and as ever, subject to interpretation, so hopefully each client can find something that reinforces his optimism about his company’s place in the market. So they are essential sources of backup data for Board presentations and the like.

The ARC DCS market study

The recent ARC report on the “Distributed Control Systems Global Market 2016-2021” report provided ABB with sufficient confidence to issue a Press Release stating that the ARC had confirmed ABB to be the ‘#1 supplier of Distributed Control Systems Globally’, with a 20% market share ‘across industries’, making ABB the leader of ‘digitally enabled control and automation’. This is a continuation of the position they have held according to ARC since 1999.

Peter Terwiesch, President of the ABB Industrial Automation division echoed these findings: “With our installed base of over 70 million connected devices and 70,000 control systems, and an annual investment of $1.5 billion in research and development, ABB is leading the digital transformation of industry.”

Such reports and statistics were the bread and butter, and even the honey, for the reports written for the Industrial Automation Insider newsletter that your editor produced from 2010 to 2015. The focus for such a report would have been that with at most seven major suppliers competing for the top slot, a 20% market share would imply the dominance margin is (still) fairly slim!

The ARC report provides a competitive analysis of the market shares of leading suppliers by geographical region, and broken down into eleven major industry groups, as well as equipment type, project size and style. The ABB release specifically mentions the ABB activity as delivering sustainable progress for power, water and process industries.

The ABB Profile

More interesting in many ways were the specific project examples picked out by ABB as the prime examples of their expertise in several sectors, viz:

“ABB’s leadership in DCS stems from countless ground-breaking projects around the globe. ABB Ability System 800xA plays a key role in securing the success for Sadara, the world’s largest chemicals complex built in a single phase. The monitoring and automating of the entire production process is fully integrated with System 800xA, all coming together in 18 control systems and 260 operator work stations. The integration capabilities also helped the Garpenberg mine to become one of the world’s most cost-effective and modern mines in the world. Hoists, mill drives, ventilation, dewatering, substations, conveyors, crushers, ore storage, and maintenance, as well as document management and communications are seamlessly integrated to the automation system. Very recently Emami Cement has chosen System 800xA to automate its new production plant which will help boost infrastructure growth in India.

“ABB Ability Symphony Plus is, for example, the core solution for integrating new emission control technology at a power plant in Wisconsin, US; for protecting the UNESCO World Heritage site of Venice, Italy from high water by controlling the city’s MOSE flood barrier system; for providing the automation and electrification solution for Adani, the world’s largest solar power plant in a single location, in Kamuthi India; and for enabling the Vietnamese utility Saigon Water Corporation (SAWACO) to control and operate its infrastructure in real time, significantly reducing the amount of non-revenue water.”

Walt Boyes has expanded on this report in the December issue of the Industrial Automation INSIDER, which was published on 11 January 2018.