See more of our State of the Industry 2016 coverage.Pumps & Systems staff spoke with Brian Dahmer, manager of application engineering at SKF USA Inc., about the major trends he expects in 2016 and how the landscape of the pump industry will change.
Q. What are the major trends that will affect the pump industry in 2016?
A. To me, it’s going to be a continued highly competitive marketplace, because a lot of areas are still slow so everybody is scrambling for what business is out there. Trying to respond quickly and have a very price-competitive and feature-dense offering is certainly going to be the continued trend. We’re still seeing certain markets becoming slow, and, therefore, what’s left over is being fought over like crazy. … There’s (also) a continued focus on high reliability. The end users too are trying to make money so if the equipment’s up and running, they’re making more money.
Q. What global news/occurrences will affect the pump market and economy next year and into the future?
A. Everything that’s going on as far as the terror activities in France Belgium and unrest in the Middle East can certainly have an effect. …I can see effects on world economy for sure. This could have very interesting ripple effects in the petrochemical and oil and gas industry depending on what goes on with the oil supply in the Middle East. If that’s disrupted and we see a major reduction in oil flow in the Middle East, that, of course, is going to increase demand in U.S. production and that could help resuscitate the economy. …Certain parts of the economy may benefit, but other parts may take a nosedive.
Q. What are some things that pump and related equipment OEMs should be doing to prepare for the changing landscape in 2016?
A. To me, it’s really flexibility that they need to be able to find out how to respond to customer needs quickly and flexibly. They need to be able to respond quickly to demands to be able to customize or modify existing products and designs to meet customer requirements in a very prompt way and also just to be able to produce their products rapidly. … It’s the competition, the fact that the market is slower. When you have an opportunity, you really have to grab it and distinguish yourself either by the design you offer or the speed you can service the need.
Q. What new technologies will have the most dramatic effect on process industries?
A. It’ll continue to grow in areas such as condition morning—monitoring entire systems. Certainly bearing systems benefit from condition monitoring to … predict problems. The technology is improving with the goal of being able to understand dynamically the condition the equipment is experiencing and being able to draw conclusions (from that).