The far-reaching impact of technology and the quantum change in the way companies are restructuring and streamlining business processes are transforming the global Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) market. The worldwide market for SCADA systems for the water & wastewater industries is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.4% over the next five years. The market was $212 million in 2006 and is forecasted to be over $275 million in 2011, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.
SCADA Functionality Linked to Business Processes ARC has analyzed the SCADA market by geographic region, project size, and component type, including hardware, software, and services. The underlying technology that facilitates traditional SCADA functionality has changed dramatically. For water utilities, emerging technology is enabling SCADA to be tightly integrated to the domain of business processes, creating an improved value proposition for its usage. SCADA systems bring improved performance to geographically dispersed assets and provide a framework for real time performance management on a regional, or even global, basis. The water utility infrastructure will utilize the enhanced functionalities of SCADA to improve its core business processes.
SCADA Is Key for Infrastructure Creation and Upgrades The water & wastewater industries in developed regions is using SCADA as a core technology to support new business processes in response to changing industry dynamics and the need for large scale upgrades of existing infrastructure. Infusion of newer SCADA technology can optimize the required level of capital expenditures for upgrades of aging infrastructure. Developing regions are seeing improving economies and thus are looking to either upgrade or install new water and wastewater treatment and distribution systems. SCADA is used to link these geographically separated facilities. SCADA will be at the core of technology adoptions as the world economy strengthens, and as the industry moves to improve business processes to meet the growing demand and economic challenges that privatization and public-private partnering of the industry requires.
Developing Regions Host New Infrastructure Growth The Asian region will experience higher than average growth through 2011, and it will remain the most significant region through the forecast period. The SCADA system market in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) will also experience higher than average growth. Latin America will experience average growth, and will remain the smallest market segment.
Source: ARC Advisory Group
