South Korea Factory Automation and Industrial Controls Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

[Report Description]

The South Korea Factory Automation and Industrial Controls Market are expected to witness a CAGR of 10.03% over the forecast period (2021-2026). The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered the manufacturing sector in South Korea to re-evaluate its conventional production processes, fundamentally driving the digital transformation and factory automation practices across the production lines. The manufacturers are also collectively driven to devise and deploy multiple new and agile approaches to monitor product and quality control.​

Key Highlights

• In South Korea, the industrial robots industry has gained accelerated momentum with multiple key stakeholders of the industry expanding in the region and adopting industrial control systems to further industrial automation.


• Favorable government initiatives have helped to strengthen the awareness and training of skilled workers in the smart factory environment. The government announced to provide support to help train 40,000 skilled workers to operate fully automated manufacturing sites through various educational programs while diversifying support. Moreover, The present target of 30,000 smart factories by 2025 by the government was increased from the previous goal of 10,000 by 2020 to keep pace with the fast evolution of complete digitalization and automation in the times of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In line with this, in 2020, the Korean government had invested USD 414.4 million into R&D projects to incentivize SME companies to advance and upscale for technologies.


• Industrial system architects, integrators, and machine builders have leveraged connected computing advances to aid manufacturing facilities function more efficiently. Rising need for real-time intelligence, better control of operations, scheduling, and increasing market penetration of big data analytics in the manufacturing industry are expected to further generate the demand for the advanced process automation technology in the near future. Big data analytics has been used to refine complicated processes and manage supply chains.


• Lastly, the presence of legacy systems has restricted the growth of the market. Most of the legacy systems were developed before the Internet was introduced. These systems were designed and developed to work without the Internet, which limits the current devices and programs to be implemented for factory automation. Whereas, introducing web solutions to legacy systems is a challenge due to issues like security, new business requirements, and compatibility.

Key Market Trends

Distributed Control System is one of the Significant Industry for Growth of Market

• DCS allows implementing more advanced process automation strategies because it operates on a closed-loop control platform. This makes DCS ideal for controlling operations at a single facility or factory. Additionally, a DCS is critical for maximizing the visibility of a facility’s day-to-day operational processes.


• One of the significant benefits of the DCS systems is that the digital communication between distributed controllers, workstations, and other computing elements follows the peer-to-peer access principle. In order to achieve greater precision and control in process industries, like the petrochemical, nuclear, and oil and gas industries, there is an increasing demand for controllers, which offer specified process tolerance around an identified set point.


• These requirements have driven the adoption of DCS, as these systems provide lower operational complexity and project risk, as well as functionalities, like flexibility for agile manufacturing in highly-demanding applications. The ability of DCS to integrate PLCs, turbomachinery controls, safety systems, third-party controls, and various other plant process controls for heat exchangers, feedwater heaters, water quality, among others, further drive the adoption of DCS in the energy sector.


• DCS is most often employed in batch-oriented or continuous method operations, such as oil purification, power generation, organic compound manufacturing, craft, food and drink manufacturing, pharmaceutical production, and cement process. DCSs could control various instrumentality types, including variable speed drives, quality control systems, motor control centers (MCC), kilns, manufacturing equipment, and mining equipment.


• According to International Trade Administration, the South Korean government invested USD 414.4 million in R&D projects in 2020 to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to progress and scale automated technologies. As a result, smart factories are increasingly focused on automated production facilities that employ artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time monitoring using Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, distributed control systems, wireless networks, and cooperation robots are among government-funded research and testbed projects.

Industrial Robots is Propelling the Market With Gradual Growth

• The industrial robotics segment consists of articulated robots, cartesian robots, SCARA robots, collaborative industry robots (cobots), parallel robots, piece picking robots, etc. The adoption of industrial robots has been increasing in most end-users applications as these robots enhance accuracy, flexibility, reduced product damage, speed, and ultimately the efficiency of operations.


• Korea s industrial robots, high-precision semiconductor and display industrial robots nevertheless rely heavily on imports at the moment. As a result, South Korea shared plans to design mid-to-long-term development strategies for robot components such as drive, remote sensing, and control and increase the proportion of R&D assistance by priority order to assure the competitiveness of fundamental components of robots. At the same time, it would set up a robot integrated component support center, three "Robot Reliability Demonstration Centers", including the Component Reliability Research Center and the Mechanical Reliability Research Center, ensure the reliability of the three core components.


• Country formed a collaboration with 25 organizations, spanning industry, academia, research specialists, and demand units, to systematically implement the robot pilot program and support the extension and popularisation of smart, collaborative robots that improve manufacturing productivity. The Robot Alliance is expected to collaborate with industry-specific characteristics in the future to develop specialized technologies for collaborative robots, their components, and software. To encourage the adoption of robot applications by small and medium-sized businesses, 20,000 smart factories are expected to be created and marketed by 2022.


• The use of collaborative robots or cobots is increasing rapidly as they are utilizing advanced sensors, software, and end-of-arm tooling that quickly and safely respond to the changes in the environment and assist in improving efficiency.


• With the help of artificial intelligence, the country s automotive sector s assembly lines have become more productive, efficient, and cost-effective. Industrial robotics on the shop floor, especially cylindrical robots, transformed automobile production by automating the manufacturing process.

Competitive Landscape

The South Korea factory automation and industrial control market is moderately consolidated, with the presence of a few globally operating companies. Those companies have been continuously investing in making strategic partnerships and product developments to gain more market share. Some of the recent developments tracked are:

• May 2021 - Schneider Electric partnered with Roca Group to accelerate decarbonization. Roca Group, a world leader in the design, production, and commercialization of products to define a new roadmap toward decarbonization, has been establishing a single, global strategy across the group.


• February 2021 - The Haemin Heavy Industries shipyard has granted ABB a contract to supply a complete power and propulsion solution for the Busan Port Authority s first all-electric passenger ferry. The new ferry is the first step in South Korean authorities goal to replace 140 state-owned conventionally powered vessels with cleaner alternative vessels by 2030, in accordance with environmental legislation.


• October 2020 - Rockwell Automation Inc. acquired Oylo, a privately-held industrial cybersecurity services provider based in Barcelona, Spain. Oylo provides a broad range of industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity services and solutions, including assessments, turnkey implementations, managed services, and incident response.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format


• 3 months of analyst support