Sales in the German electrical automation engineering sector increased by 3.4% to 36 billion Euros in 2005 according to the Central Association of the German Electrical and Electronic Engineering Industry (ZVEI). In the previous year there was a 5.4% increase. The association partly attributes the reduced sales growth to enormous pricing pressure in the sector. With sales to German customers stagnating the increase was once again the result of successful foreign business - 2005 saw an 8% increase in international sales. In 2005 the export rate reached a high of 77%. At the same time the forecast for 2006 is very positive according to the association.
2005 also saw a slight increase of one percent in the number of people employed in the sector. This increase took the total number employed to just under 208,000 and subsequently reversed the trend which saw a reduction in the number of people working in the sector in the last five years.
Industry segments
According to information from the ZVEI the global electrical automation market increased in total last year by a good 4% to 214 billion Euros. The German share of global production is 13%. Germany is therefore the largest net exporter in the field of automation. Despite a clear downturn in the automotive industry segment German switching equipment, industrial control systems and sensors for factory automation were able to increase output by 5.6% to 11.6 billion Euros in 2005.
The specialist area Electrical Drives increased output by 4.3% to 6.8 billion Euros in the previous year. Increased exports this time of 6.7% contributed considerably to the increased output. With the increased upturn in business in the German market over the past few months as well as continued success abroad confidence has been restored in business development for 2006. The manufacturers of electronic drive units and electric motors are anticipating strong momentum, in particular from the demand for energy efficiency which is becoming more significant worldwide.
Process automation which traditionally reacts out of phase to the economic cycle of machine and plant engineering technology was a good 4% above the level of the previous year with an output of almost ten billion Euros. In this segment there was also a 13% increase in export sales in 2005. In view of increasing energy prices the automation industry is placing particulary high demands on the energy efficiency of its products both during production and later operation. A worldwide uniform classification of energy saving motors is required.
Trend technologies
A trend in the German automation industry is the development of digital engineering tools for the simulation of everything from production machinery to factory planning. Other engineering trends include RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and MES-systems (Manufacturing Execution Systems). A study carried out by the ARC advisory group has forecast that by 2008 RFID’s market volume will have increased to four billion US dollars.
The ZVEI has therefore set up a strategic working group for Wireless. Furthermore ZVEI is involved with the RFID working group which was set up by NAMUR in the spring. In the communication topology a new development is beginning to emerge on the level of sensor/actuator communication with IO-link, FF (Fieldbus foundation), Interbus and Profibus expanded their leading positions with regard to the field buses and also dominated the various Ethernet variants.
