Industry demand for automation is boosting machine vision market, report says

The rising demand for automation across industries to enhance operations and productivity is driving the global machine vision market, a new report from Frost & Sullivan says.

According to the market research firm’s recent Global Machine Vision Growth Opportunities report, the industry will likely garner US$14.02 billion in revenue by 2025 from US$10.28 billion in 2020, an uptick at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4 per cent. The company also noted that with supply chain disruptions brought by COVID-19, the sector will cross 2019 levels by 2022, and that 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, Frost & Sullivan said, Asia-Pacific 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,” it said.

“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,” Sujan Sami, Frost & Sullivan’s industrial program manager said in a statement. “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.”

The company recommends that vendors wanting to tap into vision growth opportunities should self-optimize manufacturing and use Robotic-as-a-service providers. Additionally, the company recommends that machine vision vendors expand their solutions through Deep Learning and AI.