A powerful weapon for industrial automation production: DCS system

The DCS system, according to Wikipedia, is a type of decentralized control system that is more suitable for some large-scale production industries, such as chemical and thermal power plants. At present, its application in China is mainly concentrated in some large thermal power projects. In the past 20 years, on the basis of the original DDC direct digital control technology research and development and industrial computer application, on the basis of the engineering application and technology introduction of foreign DCS, the independent DCS industry has gradually formed, especially in large-scale thermal power generation. The application of domestic DCS in the factory has achieved gratifying results.

The market for distributed DCS control systems began to recover from last year after experiencing the severe impact of the global financial crisis and economic recession in 2009 and 2010. According to ARC's latest Global Market Research Report on Distributed Control Systems, the sales orders for the new heavy-duty process industry new projects in 2011 were converted into revenues in 2012, driving the DCS market to a new peak. The vertical industry of power generation and oil and gas development is particularly rapid. These vertical industries account for the largest share of the DCS market, driving the DCS market as a whole. Although the metal and mining industries are small, the rate of development is also much higher than the average. Among them, the rebound in the DCS system market in the power industry in Latin America and Asia has become obvious, while in Western Europe and North America, the growth is slow. ARC expects this to continue until 2017.

In terms of the Chinese market, China has introduced the DCS system since the 1980s. After more than 30 years of rapid development, the domestic DCS system has also achieved relatively gratifying market results.

According to industry insiders, through survey data analysis, the current comprehensive performance of domestically produced DCS systems and imported products has little difference, and all types of fully enclosed design modules have maintenance-free performance, and the total number of I/O points has reached more than 15,000. Above the point; the software is all running on the WINDOWS platform, the interface is friendly, the configuration is easy to modify, the Chinese environment is easy to understand and master, and the application functions basically include all the needs of the power plant. This shows that DCS design and manufacturing, performance parameters can meet the current requirements of China's thermal power unit construction design specifications. After years of continuous digestion and absorption of imported DCS systems, and its own research and development and efforts, the domestic distributed control system has made great progress and development. Especially with the support of several major power generation groups, the performance, function and quality reliability of domestic DCS have been rapidly improved.

After nearly 10 years of rapid development, the market share of domestic DCS has further increased, and competition among DCS suppliers has intensified. The operating scale of domestic leading DCS manufacturers has further expanded and their strength has been further enhanced. Compared with foreign DCS giants, the scale of operation of domestic manufacturers has yet to be improved, and the functionality of the system needs to be further improved, especially the supply capacity of complete systems, total solution (TotalSolution), high reliability, high security control. The design and manufacturing capabilities of the system and the innovation capabilities of new products and new technologies also need to be greatly improved.

However, due to the financial crisis, backward production capacity and other factors, the main application areas of DCS (such as petrochemical, chemical, electric power, metallurgy and other industries) have been affected differently, and the future development trend will gradually move to the entire industrial scope (such as municipal, Food, building materials, environmental protection, transportation, etc.).

Today, developed countries are headed by the United States; developing countries, headed by China, are pushing domestic manufacturing to further development based on their respective economic and industrial development needs. Developed countries are to avoid the hollowing out of economic development as the basic premise, provide the source of power for economic recovery, and vigorously promote high-tech industrial technology, which is high-tech high-tech, then automated production is essential, and promote domestic automation industry including DCS system. Rapid growth. In developing countries, it is based on the provision of industry production automation, and strives to liberate from the development of human-intensive industries, and fundamentally improve production technology from manufacturing, and provide competing strength for the subsequent global industry competition. By the same token, developing countries have more demand for automation equipment and systems than in the process.

From a global perspective, the 2012 DCS system has a strong momentum of development and market revenues have exceeded the peak in 2008, but ARC expects the market to fall back to a moderately normal level, with a compound annual growth rate for the next five years (2011-2016). From 3% to 4%. Although the order rates of most DCS suppliers are very high from the end of 2011 to 2012, sales orders are expected to decrease in 2013. However, due to the high concentration of projects in the DCS market, it takes nearly nine months from order to revenue. ARC expects the growth rate of DCS revenue in 2013 to reach an average level.