The highly competitive industrial environment coupled with the impact of economic crisis is forcing companies across all sectors to re-assess their budget spending and improve their overall efficiency to stay competitive and maintain profit margins. The move towards adopting wireless solutions could be an effective solution to reduce costs and improve plant efficiency if wireless technology is understood and adopted for the right application areas.

Wireless devices are making an entry into the industrial environment thanks to their numerous benefits such as flexibility, cabling cost reduction and extending measurements to critical information. According to Frost & Sullivan's pan-European study on Wireless Devices in Process Industries and Wireless Devices in Factory Automation, not only wireless devices can help companies in cutting costs but they can also boost productivity. The percentage breakdown of revenues, the drivers, and the rates of adoption do differ per industry. The main sectors profiting from implementing wireless are Oil and Gas, Pharmaceutical, Automotive, Food and Beverages.

Oil and Gas - Oil and gas industry is expected to lead wireless adoption among the process industries. The market in EMEA, which is estimated at just over 25 million USD in 2008, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of around 23 % to reach close to 40 million by 2010. There have already been a lot of interesting results achieved through wireless adoption in the oil and gas industry. The need for remote and real time monitoring has been high in upstream applications like well head monitoring. According to Frost & Sullivan, "Remote sites are now able to communicate effectively with a reported production increase of 5-10% and overall efficiency increase of anywhere between 5 to 15%." Furthermore, initial investments are expected to fetch returns in matter of months.

Pharmaceutical - Results from existing installations of wireless in leading pharmaceutical plants demonstrate benefits such as greater operator flexibility and ability to remotely monitor various parameters in areas like tank farms. Frost & Sullivan's analysts have no doubts: "Using wireless devices for monitoring purposes has reduced total monitoring costs by close to 30% in some cases apart from enabling safety for operators in tank farms." Wireless devices market in the Pharmaceutical industry in EMEA is estimated at over 3 million USD in 2008 is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of around 21 % to reach close to 4.5 million by 2010.

Automotive - The adoption of wireless devices in the automotive industry is increasing and the trend is expected to continue. The automotive industry contributes about 35-40 per cent of the total revenues of wireless adoption in the factory automation. The wireless market for automotive industry in Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom and Spain is estimated at 31.6 million USD and is expected to reach 42 million USD by 2010. One of the leading car manufacturers has increased the technicians' productivity more than 30 per cent with the help of wireless devices. Complimenting this, another well-established brand brought in a cost saving of 200,000 USD to 500,000 USD per facility with the fast and ease installation of wireless devices in the factory floor. The major drivers for wireless adoption in the automotive industry are the need for real-time data, work-force mobility and ease of installation/commissioning. According to Frost & Sullivan, "Deploying wireless devices for less-critical applications results in huge cost savings for the automobile end-user."

Food & Beverages - In food and beverages industry, wireless devices are employed in the robotics and packaging applications. Installing acoustic wireless sensors by large scale beverage manufacturers has reduced the cabling and installation cost from 6000 USD to 1000 USD. The main factor for wireless adoption is the need for continuous data tracking, production monitoring and ease of installation. "Applications involving continuous monitoring such as temperature, pressure, Ph factor, humidity and yield have increased the need for wireless adoption in this industry," note the analysts. The wireless market for Food and Beverages industry in Western Europe is estimated at 18.7 million USD and is expected to reach close to 25 million USD by 2010.