NFPA Collecting Input on Industrial Fluid Power Market Drivers

The National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) is currently seeking input from the hydraulics and pneumatics sector on customer drivers for industrial machinery applications. 

As the association explains, these customer drivers are the top-level performance objectives of machine builders and help describe the benefits these manufacturers want to provide to their customers, the buyers or users of their machines. 

NFPA has created a survey to collect this input which will be used for the creation of its next technology roadmap focused on industrial, or in-plant, applications. The association's technology roadmaps collect information on the evolving requirements of fluid power customers to provide the industry with a guide which can help inform potential R&D initiatives for hydraulics and pneumatics, ensuring they remain a motion control technology of choice for years to come.

In late 2024, NFPA announced its next technology roadmap will be focused on industrial applications because it felt its previous editions had focused more on mobile customer markets and it wanted to ensure it is serving members working in industrial segments as well.

View the below content to learn more about the NFPA's technology roadmaps and insights presented in previous editions.

The NFPA survey also aims to get input on customer strategies which are the machine-level objectives or technologies that the machine builders have set or are using to help them achieve the top-level performance objectives described by the Customer Drivers. Doing so well will help the association to provide more robust and insightful information to members of the fluid power industry. 

To ensure a broad range of data is collected from those sectors utilizing hydraulics and pneumatics, the survey asks questions about the fluid power industry's 14 largest industrial customer markets: 

• Aerospace Manufacturing
• Food Product Machinery
• Medical Equipment Manufacturing
• Metalworking and Machine Tools
• Oil and Gas Machinery
• Packaging Machinery
• Plastics and Rubber Machinery
• Power Generation
• Primary Metals Manufacturing
• Recycling Equipment
• Robotics, Assembly and Material Handling
• Semiconductor Machinery
• Vehicle Manufacturing
• Wood and Paper Machinery.

NFPA is encouraging people to share the survey link with others they may know developing or using fluid power technologies in industrial applications to help get as much feedback as possible. The survey is open until January 31, 2025. 

Future surveys will be used to collect additional information to include in the final technology roadmap document which NFPA aims to publish in November 2025.