New research from Interact Analysis on the market for smart conveyance technology, shows that its longer-term outlook is much more positive than manufacturing and machinery production growth overall, helped by the faster speeds and enhanced flexibility on offer, becoming increasingly valued by end-users. Smart conveyance technology is an innovative motion control technology including both linear and planar-based transport systems, which comprise direct drive technology and independently-controlled carriers, carts or tiles – also referred to as independent cart technology, flexible transport systems or multi-carrier systems.

The positive outlook for this market is boosted by the fact it’s relatively immature and so is benefitting from increasingly rapid adoption by new industries and applications as customers' understanding of the features and benefits of this technology versus more traditional motion control technologies increases. Like all markets, smart conveyance technology was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, it grew by 27% in 2021 and is expected to increase by 36% in 2022.

The market for linear smart conveyance technology is set to enjoy substantial growth out to 2026 with an overall CAGR of 26.5%, growing from $300 million in 2021 to almost $1 billion in 2026. From a regional perspective, the most rapid growth will be in Asia Pacific where the market will exceed that of EMEA by 2023. This is mainly due to the positive outlook for the battery manufacturing, electronics and semiconductor sectors in APAC. By 2026 the APAC market for linear SCT will be worth an estimated $450 million versus $350 million in EMEA. The food and beverage, medical device, pharmaceutical, semiconductor and electronics sectors are currently, and will continue to be, the dominant sectors for linear SCT out to 2026. However, demands from the battery manufacturing sector for the technology are heating up and so the battery sector is likely to generate the highest growth by the end of the forecast period with a CAGR of 51.7%.

Unlike the more established linear SCT market, the planar smart conveyance technology (planar SCT) market is very small with most customers currently only trialing the technology. Despite this, the planar SCT market is expected to ramp up very quickly to be worth >$70 million by 2026, showing a CAGR of 41.2%. One of the main benefits of planar SCT technology compared to linear SCT is that it offers far superior flexibility. Because the technology is in a testing phase, the market is relatively evenly split across a range of industry sectors. By 2026, however, the battery manufacturing sector will represent the largest market for planar SCT with a CAGR of 60.1%. The trend here is clear: the battery manufacturing sector will be a key driver of growth for both linear SCT and planar SCT.

Figure 2: The planar SCT market is currently in the ‘testing’ phase, but growth will ramp up steadily out to 2026

Tim Dawson, Senior Research Director at Interact Analysis, said, “The supply chain crisis coupled with soaring raw material prices created the perfect storm for manufacturers in 2021 which had a knock-on effect on pricing. Increased freight rates also forced SCT vendors to place delivery surcharges on their products because of component shortages. But it’s encouraging to see new suppliers are entering the market. Most new suppliers are in Europe, which is one factor that is projected to boost EMEA’s market share. These new entrants are set to launch products that will compete with those of the top four vendors – Beckhoff, Rockwell Automation, B&R, and Siemens, who between them currently account for three-quarters of the market.”