A new report published by Stats and Reports, titled “Global CNC Controller Market”, has shed new light on the current health of the market and goes into considerable detail about a number of key metrics for gauging performance. The report provides a detailed analysis of the market’s most likely trajectory over the next six years, taking us up to 2025.
What Did the Report Look At?
In addition to a broad overview of the market as a whole, Stats and Reports have also given an analysis of the competition at the highest levels of the industry, looking at the individual performance, sales volume, price revenue, and market share for the leading manufacturers. Some of these names will be familiar to just about everybody – Siemens and Mitsubishi, for example. Other names, such as Wuhan Huazong Numerical Control, won’t mean much to the general public but are big names within their industry.
Globally, the CNC market can be divided into different categories on the basis of the product, the end-user, or the geographical regions that the businesses operate in. The report looked at in-depth data for each of these categories, along with revenue data and analyses.
Methodology
Around 80% of the research for the study came from primary interviews conducted with individuals in key management roles within Tier-I and II businesses. The remaining 20% comprised of secondary research from publicly available data.
The Market Today
CNC machining represents the culmination of a journey that has been going on for centuries. Every time there has been a significant advance in our automation capabilities, we have used those advances to produce more sophisticated pieces automatically. CAD and CAM have really changed the game here, as will 3D printing.
However, in the here and now, CNC machining is able to provide benefits that other machining techniques can’t match, there is information on this type of machining here. If you follow that link, you will come to the website of RapidDirect. They are is the largest manufacturing network in China providing CNC manufacturing to international customers. There’s little doubt that businesses like this represent the likely future of CNC manufacturing, providing businesses with access to CNC services at a reasonable price. As it stands, investing in CNC machinery is a big ask for most businesses.
Because CNC machining relies so heavily on precision, the controllers that underpin the machines are every bit as vital as the tools that they use to sculpt materials within. More sophisticated controllers enable more precise and more reliable work. Better controllers also open the pathway to even more automation.
CNC machines as they exist today are not fully automated. While the machine will automatically mill the material inside according to its pre-programmed sequence, a person has to be involved in several stages of the process. Arguably, there will always be the need for at least one human for every automated system – if for no other reason than to provide maintenance and tech support. But in the case of CNC machining, there is enough human involvement for there to be an associated labor cost with the use of a CNC machine.
This is part of the reason that we expect businesses like RapidDirect to do very well in the near-term. Better CNC controllers mean that businesses that provide CNC manufacturing and prototyping services will be able to reduce their overheads. When you’re dealing with a network of huge factories, anything that can shave even a second off your per-unit manufacturing time will lead to a massive increase in productivity.
Is Now a Good Time to invest?
The CNC controller market is performing very strongly on paper, but is it still a wise investment choice? The long-term future of manufacturing is both exciting and unpredictable. At any moment, a significant leap in technology could mean that 3D printing lurches forwards and starts rendering large swathes of other tech obsolete. Quite such a dramatic scenario is unlikely, but there is plenty of room for disruptive technology to emerge.
That said, CNC machining is gaining prominence and popularity. As costs have come down, lots of businesses who would previously have been averse to investing in CNC machining are beginning to consider it as a viable option. CNC machining allows for better prototyping that is more representative of the final product and this in itself gives it a huge advantage.
Further advances in CNC machining – something that everybody currently wants – will require advances in CNC controllers. In terms of their physical construction, there are only minor incremental improvements to be made to CNC mills. The really significant advances will come from the controllers and software that are directing the show.
The CNC controller market is performing very strongly, but this is to be expected. Going forward, CNC controllers seem like a solid investment choice, as does the CNC machining market more broadly.
