Electronic Components Channel Looking Toward Recovery In 2017
by Victoria Fraza Kickham in GlobalPurchasing.com
Manufacturing will continue its climb toward pre-recession business levels in 2017, as suppliers look for growth in wearables, medical, and industrial IoT markets.
As the electronic components supply channel finishes another slow-growth year, economists and business leaders expect improvement in 2017 on the way to a full manufacturing industry recovery by late 2020. The outlook adds up to cautious optimism among many supply chain business leaders, who are keeping a close eye on connectivity trends (think Internet of Things), especially in industrial markets.
“The two markets I see leading the way for IoT are industrial and home automation,” says Raymond Yin, director of technical content at Mouser Electronics, pointing to the smart factories movement in particular. “If you think about industrial manufacturing, factories already have all these controls set up to monitor and measure productivity [and so on]. Now, IoT is coming in and automating all that. It’s a matter of collecting the data. [Industrial] customers are able to make almost immediate use of IoT, while everyone else is still figuring it out.”
Indeed, a November report from industry researcher IHS Technology predicts 2% growth in the industrial automation equipment market this year, to $203 billion, due largely to the advent of IoT-related trends and a growing desire for connectivity on the factory floor. Other hot markets for 2017 include wearables and the health/medical market—and, more specifically, the convergence of the two. All of this adds up to a modestly optimistic outlook, in line with expected GDP growth of more than 2% next year.
Click here to read about the Manufacturing Outlook and Markets to Watch