Fieldbus drives valve island market growth

The market for valve Islands is forecast to grow at 6.8% p.a over the next 5 years according to leading automation analysts IMS Research, with a strong requirement for Ethernet connectivity

The market for valve islands is forecast to grow at 6.8% p.a over the next 5 years according to leading automation analysts IMS Research.

The prime driver for this increase is predicted to be the need for users to integrate pneumatics into their networked systems.

This valve island growth is forecast, despite the expected steady decline in the use of pneumatics in general.

The latest report on the valve island market from IMS Research, which covers the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions, estimates that 364,427 valve islands were sold in 2003 and this number is forecast to grow to 507,497 in 2008.

Valve islands that have fieldbus connectivity are expected to account for the majority of the growth, whereas the more traditional multipole or parallel method of connection, is expected to grow very little over this period.

IMS Research consulted manufacturers and users for this study and found that there was a strong requirement for Ethernet connectivity.

Senior Market Analyst John Morse commented "We found that few manufacturers currently had a product that had direct connectivity to Ethernet, whereas our user survey suggested that this would be a common requirement in three years time.

The lack of existing products is a little surprising in view of recent studies of the industrial communications market, which found Ethernet becoming a well established and increasingly popular option".

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