Making the Choice: Cables & Connectors

Though they don’t often receive the attention given to other automation technologies, cables and connectors are critical to the power and data transmission needs of industry’s digital transformation.

Considering their importance to the industrial world—delivering electrical power, transferring data, and providing reliable connectivity among end points—cables and connectors don’t often receive the attention they’re due. As much attention is spent on Industry 4.0, digital twins, and other advanced automation technologies, it’s important to recognize that cables and connectors are the transactional backbone of digital transformation. Nothing could be done without them—and that includes the wireless activities that depend on wired infrastructures to seamlessly transfer data to gateways for wireless transmission.

This reality is why the selection of cables and connectors should be treated as critically as the more advanced technologies that often capture more of our attention.

Underscoring the importance of cables and connectors to the digital transformation of industry is the health of this market. Allied MarketResearch projects the compound annual growth of the global cable and connector market will hit 8.3% between 2020 to 2027.

Paying more attention to cabling and connector choices is possibly more important now than ever, as many companies are in the position of needing to upgrade cabling, says Mike Berg, senior business development manager at Panduit. “Many of the plant floors put in Cat5 cabling for Ethernet. But that was a long time ago. The quality of the connection is not up to current standards,” he says. Now, the need to connect controls networks to the enterprise is driving the need for high-performance cabling.