From the Smart Watch and the Smart Home to the Smart Factory – the world of technology around us is becoming smart, adaptable, and increasingly autonomous. Smart Systems combine sensors and actuators with information and communications technology to analyse complex situations, make decisions autonomously, and initiate processes on that basis. They combine diverse technologies, yet are tailored to a wide range of different applications, including transport, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and the consumer sector. The field provides fertile ground for innovative, agile businesses of any size. An estimate by the European Commission based on surveys by IHS Technology and Yole Consulting values the global market for Smart Systems currently at around 500 billion Euro, with Europe accounting for almost 30 per cent of that total.
Market volumes are likely to grow substantially over the years ahead. Market research organisation MarketsandMarkets forecasts that the Smart Factory sector, involving the networking of every link in the value chain, will grow at an annual rate of 6 per cent. As a result, that market alone will be worth almost 67 billion Dollars by 2020. Predicted growth rates in the Smart Home sector are even more impressive. MarketsandMarkets forecasts that it will grow at an average 17 per cent a year, attaining a value of some 59 billion Dollars by 2020.
This growth will also be reflected directly in sales of electronic components – because without sensors, processors or communications modules there can be no Smart Systems. As one example, the market in mobile modules for machine-to-machine communications, as used for in-car network connectivity among other applications, is set to almost triple in the next three years: to around 4.5 billion Dollars by 2018, according to market research organisation Infonetics Research. Sales of sensors – the eyes and ears of Smart Systems – will also be boosted. According to BCC Research, the global sensors market will grow from a little over 86 billion Dollars in 2014 to 154 billion Dollars by 2020. Not all the electronic components covered by the forecasts will be installed in Smart Systems. But there are going to be more and more of them. The cost of developing and manufacturing Smart Systems poses a major hurdle however – especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The world is getting smart
