VISION 2022: Final Report
VISION 2022 recorded a total number of 6,505 trade visitors. “VISION 2022 was a complete success and vastly exceeded our expectations—both in terms of visitors and exhibitors,” says Roland Bleinroth, President, Messe Stuttgart. “It was also nice to see that, following the limitations caused by the pandemic last year, the event once again had a high international presence. This means that VISION once more developed along established structures also in terms of information procurement.”
Overall, visitors from 60 countries were registered. The strongest presence was from Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Spain and the UK. VISION also welcomed a larger trade audience from South Korea, Japan, and the USA.
In addition to the classical client industries such as electrical engineering/electronics, mechanical engineering and plant construction as well as the automotive and automotive component supply industry, there was a significant share of visitors from non-industrial sectors present, including medical technology and pharmacology, agricultural industry, aerospace engineering, as well as transport and logistics. Accordingly, the interest in offers of non-industrial applications increased compared to the previous year. Similarly, turnkey machine vision systems also recorded increased visitor attention.
55% of visitors indicated that they were decisive or involved in purchasing and procurement decisions in their companies. 27% attended the fair with deliberate investment or purchase intentions.
A total of 378 exhibiting companies—60% of which came from abroad—presented a wide range of machine vision solutions across three days. Next to many first-time participants, the sector’s established players were also present. To Dr Dietmar Ley, CEO Basler AG, VISION is Europe’s most important Computer Vision marketplace. “For us, VISION is the central platform for introducing innovations and communicating our new orientation towards becoming a solution provider,” he says. “Once again, many visitors approached us with specific new projects this year. Initiatives such as the VISION Guided Tours for food and beverages, intralogistics, and medical and pharmacology created new incentives for visitors from application areas beyond factory automation”. He adds, “We have observed progress in the area of artificial intelligence. Within this context, Industry 4.0 with a Cloud architecture and AI-based machine vision will be increasingly established on edge devices. At the same time, 3D technology will continue to mature and become less expensive.”
Beckhoff Automation participated for the first time as an exhibitor at the fair. Bernd Stöber, Senior Product Manager Vision, expressed his all-round satisfaction. “It was our aim to present the vision-tech sector for the first time in addition to our previous vision software solutions also with the new hardware products and thus an integrated, control-synchronized all-inclusive package,” he says. “Our extended portfolio allowed us to generate a large number of new contacts. After the in-depth talks at VISION, the visitors now perceive Beckhoff as a single-source provider for vision solutions. This confirms our intention to exhibit again in 2024.”
VISION Award 2022 goes to Kitov.ai
Kitov.ai also participated for the first time. As a newcomer to the fair, the Israeli company directly won the VISION Award 2022 for its CAD2SCAN software that significantly simplifies the structure of robotic inspection systems through the use of CAD-based automated inspection planning. “Winning the VISION Award 2022 allows us to continue the development of this technology and to optimize the KI,” says Corey Merchang, Vice President Americas at Kitov.ai. “This makes it easier for manufacturers to introduce automated visual inspection. We are incredibly grateful for having been given this opportunity to address a wider trade audience.”
VISION Startup World on Track for Growth
One indication of the sector’s innovative power is the VISION Start-up World at which a total of 20 young companies were able to present themselves. Within the scope of the daily start-up pitch sessions, a Start-Up of the Day was chosen each day. “On the last day of the fair, Visometry from Farmstead, Germany, emerged as the VISION Start-up 2022. The company convinced the jury with its “Digital Twin” approach for the detection and tracing of components based on their 3D CAD files. This allows quality engineers to carry out a target/actual analysis to detect production errors at an early stage of the assembly process.
The next VISION will take place October 8-10, 2024. For more information, visit www.vision-fair.de.