ANN ARBOR, MI. The global motion control and motor market experienced record growth in 2018. According to the Motion Control & Motor Association, part of the Association for Advancing Automation, shipments were up 3 percent in the last quarter of the year contributing to the overall annual growth of the market.

The largest categories within the overall market were motors, actuators and mechanical systems and electronic drives. Those three categories grew 11 percent, 12 percent, and 7 percent, respectively, which contributed to the overall growth. The strong performance in these markets highlights the substantial role motion control and motor technologies play in growing automation worldwide.

Digitalization is having the biggest impact on the motion control and motors market. It saves on maintenance and downtime costs by providing data to identify probable component or machine failures well before they happen.

“Digital transformation of the industrial landscape has reached an inflection point, and implementation among early adopters has given way to broader market penetration,” said of A3’s VP, Dana Whalls. “Data is now being captured at the component, machine, line, plant and enterprise levels. Modern components simplify digitalization with built-in connectivity, memory, and processing capabilities, and edge-computing devices send data sets to the cloud where it is mined with analytics. This enables much more rapid, informed decisions.”

For more information, please visit https://www.motioncontrolonline.org/ or https://www.a3automate.org/.