DCS, PLCs replacing discete instruments??

A

Thread Starter

at

Currently, I am in US but there is a company in India for which i used to work (http://www.pyrotechindia.com) which manufactures Process control instruments such as
Indicators, Controllers, Counters, timers, Flow
totalizers, Converters, PID controllers, etc.

I was told that typically big plants (petrochem) have DCS in them and the need for these instruments is very little, if a plant has DCS. These are used more in PLC based plants which happen to be smaller.

By reading more on internet, I got the impression that DCS and PLC can both do analog and discerete controls, generally. So if a PLC or DCS are doing all the control why would anyone have the nede to use a discrete controller in a plant (the only possibility if it's a small section where having a PLC or DCS is prohibitively expensive)?

I want to gauge the future of these products. I don't understand it very well as to how companies
here in USA market these products as I assume
most of the plants are big here. What's the future of manufacturer of such products... Is market for these products shrinking? What could be a good supplement line of products?

I am sorry for asking lots of questions... I am an
Engineer by profession and trying to get more
information about the market...

Thanks for your reply in anticipation..
regards,
AT
 
There is a market study, "THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONIC TEMPERATURE CONTROLLERS, EIGHTH EDITION - AN EXECUTIVE WHITE PAPER FOR SENIOR MANAGERS" at http://www.vdc-corp.com/industrial/white/03/03temp.pdf

The market is forecast to grow at a 1.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), reaching $793.2 million in 2005. This rate will not be constant, however, as economic conditions and falling prices are expected to cause the market to decline through 2003 before recovering in 2004. Unit shipments are forecast at a 4.7% CAGR, with price declines of microprocessor-based controllers lowering dollar volume growth. The decline in prices will be primarily driven by global competition among temperature controller vendors and competition from alternative means of controlling temperature such as with DCSs, PLCs and PCs.

Warren
http://www.pc-pid.com
"the PC-based Temperature Controller people"
 
Thanks a lot Warren!!

It was a very informative paper. I ended up reading most of their white papers.. It was very helpful.
Thank you...

I also realized while reading those papers that PC control is picking up... Good luck to you.
And, this is similar to VDC.
http://www.arcweb.com/

Ankit
 
even though plcs in dcs replace discrete instruments in the process of controlling, there is a major work called as measuring and monitoring, without proper measuring we can't be getting the real status of the process, so gauges are always need, may be the analog gauges would b turned out to b digital.

also abt controllers, only the big industries who can invest in and have major processes use dcs, so the market may go down a bit, but will never drop out.
 
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