Industry-driven demand for automation to boost operations and productivity spurs global machine vision market

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Global Machine Vision Growth Opportunities, finds that rising demand for automation across industries to enhance operations and productivity is driving the global machine vision market. The industry will likely garner $14.02 billion in revenue by 2025 from $10.28 billion in 2020, an uptick at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4%. However, with supply chain disruptions due to the impact of COVID-19, the sector will cross 2019 levels by 2022, and the positive trends witnessed across industries—pharmaceuticals, food and beverage processing and packaging, electronics and semiconductors, and automotive—will be crucial to prompt the market expansion.

From a regional perspective, Asia-Pacific (APAC) will remain the largest and fastest-growing market for machine vision systems over the forecast period. Industrialization—especially in automotive, pharmaceuticals, and electronics and semiconductors—is the primary reason to leverage the market in the region. Similarly, North America and Europe will register moderate growth. Demand for automation in manufacturing—food processing, pharmaceutical, automotive, and medical devices—will accelerate the machine vision systems industry in the regions.

“The demand for machine vision systems will witness a surge as the manufacturing industry worldwide makes a transformational shift toward Industry 5.0, which will be fully autonomous with human-to-machine interfaces and zero waste,” said Sujan Sami, Industrial Program Manager at Frost & Sullivan. “Further, the change in consumer eating habits and lifestyles due to pandemic has resulted in the growth of food and beverage manufacturing, processing, and packaging companies. As food safety regulations grow stricter globally, food processing and manufacturing industries increasingly depend on machine vision systems for quality control.”

Sami added: “As end-users increasingly seek compact, high-quality, and easy-to-integrate vision solutions for their business processes, market leaders are developing strategic partnerships with automation and robotics companies to bring cost-effective business and service models in the machine vision space. Further, market participants’ efforts to provide automation solutions at low costs encourage them to create innovative business models like the subscription-based as-a-service model, which meets customers’ needs for high-quality services at low prices.”

To tap into machine vision growth opportunities, vendors should focus on:

• Self-optimizing manufacturing: As organizations formulate strategies to optimize production with industrial artificial intelligence, companies can incorporate AI capabilities into existing operating technology (OT) and information technology (IT) to reduce silos.
• Robotic-as-a-service (RaaS): Machine vision companies should work with robotics companies and RaaS providers to develop solutions that enhance manufacturing industries’ quality and inspection parameters without increasing manufacturers’ costs.
• Deep Learning and AI: Machine vision vendors should expand their solutions to meet untapped customer needs in technology innovation, flexibility, efficiency, and accuracy.