the preferred destination principally to set it up because of its inherent strengths, including talented manpower and an efficient cost proposition. Our aim is to build a world-class engineering development centre in India that will own and drive outstanding engineering developments for the building automation and management systems.”

Look to tech

Despite the current economic slowdown, the technologies market still holds tremendous growth potential. Across the world, customers are looking for innovative solutions that reduce costs and increase productivity. That augers well for automation, say market observers.

“To counter the current volatile market, one has to think differently and come up with innovative solutions,” states Vimal Kapur, managing director, Honeywell Automation India Ltd (HAIL, www.honeywell.com/sites/acs/hail). According to him, 2008 witnessed the evolution of technological trends in the automation sector and these are sure to have an impact on the industry in the near future.

Initially, automation solutions were more or less restricted only to the process industry; however today, automation finds many takers. Even in building management systems, automation solutions have become very popular in India. Automation in the infrastructure industries has also been growing very rapidly. Thus, the automation industry is certainly having an impact on the economy and will continue to keep up the momentum in the days to come.

About the author

Uday Lal Pai, udaylalpai@gmail.com, is a freelance journalist based in India.