Process Control Instrument Manufacturers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 770 process control instrument manufacturers in the US produce instruments and devices for measuring, displaying, recording, transmitting, and controlling industrial process variables such as temperature, pressure, flow, viscosity, and concentration. Customers are wide ranging but include manufacturers, distributors, utilities, natural resource extractors, military, and equipment repair services.
Dependence on International Trade
US process control instrument manufacturers are highly dependent on sales to foreign manufacturing markets, which exposes them to foreign currency exchange risks and trade tensions between countries.
Product Obsolescence
The industry rapidly introduces new and improved process control instruments and related technology and services that render older products less effective or obsolete.
Industry size & Structure
A typical process control instrument manufacturer operates out of a single location, employs about 75 workers, and generates about $15.6 million annually.
- The process control instrument manufacturing industry consists of about 770 companies which employ about 57,600 workers and generate about $12 billion annually.
- Customer industries include manufacturers, distributors, utilities, natural resource extractors, military, and equipment repair services.
- The industry is concentrated with the 20 largest firms representing 59% of industry revenue.
- Large companies include Emerson, Hayward, Parker Hannifin, and Furness Controls.
Industry Forecast
Process Control Instrument Manufacturers Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Jul 14, 2024 - Shipments Decrease Year Over Year
- Shipments of electromedical measuring and control instruments decreased 1.0% year over year but increased 24.8% month over month in March, according to the US Census Bureau. Process control instrument manufactures increased prices slightly during the first five months of 2024, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Process control instrument industry sales are forecast to grow at a 0.27% compounded annual rate from 2024 to 2028, slower than the growth of the overall economy.
- The Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index, a leading measure of US manufacturing activity, decreased to 48.7 in May from 49.2 in April. Readings below 50.0 indicate contraction in the manufacturing sector. Process control instrument manufacturers are likely to be negatively impacted by decreasing manufacturing activity. The index has now contracted for 18 of the past 19 months. “US manufacturing activity continued in contraction after growing in March, the first expansion for the sector since September 2022,” said ISM’s Timothy R. Fiore. “Demand was soft again, output was stable, and inputs stayed accommodative.”
- Critical infrastructure systems are vulnerable to a new kind of cyberattack that targets browser-based control systems in industrial facilities with easy-to-deploy, difficult-to-detect malware, according to researchers at Georgia Tech university. The malware targets programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which are increasingly made with embedded webservers and are accessed on site via web browsers. Attackers can exploit this approach and gain full access to infrastructure systems. "We're calling it web-based PLC malware. It gives you full device and physical process control,” said Ryan Pickren, a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the lead author of a new study describing the malware and its implications. This new cyberattack strategy is the result of a shift in recent years in software and devices used to control and monitor various industrial systems. Manufacturers have turned to web-based management instead of a dedicated terminal or control pad running custom software specific to the device.
- Process control instrument manufacturers benefiting from reshoring may also benefit from nearshoring, according to the Reshoring Initiative (RI). Harry Moser, founder of RI, says that if a product is so labor intensive that you can’t bring it to the US, then companies are sometimes surprised to find that wages in Mexico are far lower than in China. The average Mexican manufacturing worker earns $4 an hour, while the rate in China — where wages have been gaining 10% to 15% a year — is currently around $7, and in the US, it’s roughly $23. Products coming from Mexico end up with an average 40% US content, while in China they have 5% US content.
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