Sales inside the machine vision industry grew 16 percent in North America in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the same quarter a year earlier, according to the Automated Imaging Association (AIA). The trade organization recorded robust sales across almost all major machine vision supplier markets, including cameras, lighting, optics, software, application-specific machine vision systems and smart cameras. A new report from the group also found that the industry expects sales to stay at current levels or to increase in the next six months. Overall, only 9 percent of reporting companies expected sales to decrease. “It is encouraging that, for the sixth quarter in a row, the machine vision market in North America has recorded solid year-over-year growth,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of the AIA. Paul Kellett, AIA’s director of market analysis, added that the double-digit growth of the market in the second quarter this year was particularly impressive given that the industry’s recovery was already in full swing during the comparable period last year. For more information, visit: www.machinevisiononline.org