Measurement equipment for process control in the chemical industry has to face severe restrictions due to safety concerns and regulations. In this work, we discuss the challenges raised by safety concerns and explain how they lead to strong power and energy constraints in the design of industrial measurement equipment. We argue that a comprehensive strategy in the design and implementation of hardware and software on one hand, and power management on the other hand is required to satisfy these constraints. Furthermore we demonstrate solutions for the power efficient design of the computing system and bus topology in an industrial environment.