With approximately 31,000 visitors, AUTOMATICA 2010 provided important stimuli for the economic development of the automation industry. AUTOMATICA, International Trade Fair for Automation and Mechatronics, took place in Munich from 8 to 11 June 2010 and presented the world's largest range of products in robotics and automation.
The good results were reflected in a very high number of trade fair visitors and an increase in the number of foreign guests. Overall, 34 percent of the visitors came from other countries, which represents a substantial increase of 26 percent compared to 2008. The visitors came from 114 countries. In addition to Germany, the highest number of visitors came from Austria, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, France, Slovenia, the USA, Spain, Great Britain and Denmark.
The representative survey conducted by the independent institute TNS infratest reported: AUTOMATICA is a leading trade fair for 88 percent of the visitors; 94 percent of the exhibitors assessed AUTOMATICA 2010 as “excellent to good," and 92 percent of the visitors gave top grades for the completeness of the range of offers.
Dr. Michael Zürn, Senior Manager Process Engineering at Daimler AG, also confirmed this: "AUTOMATICA is extremely important for us as an innovation platform. It presents all automation technologies and state-of-the-art of developments. Very many of our employees are here to see what there is."
The results among exhibitors underline the importance AUTOMATICA as a leading international trade fair of the automation industry. AUTOMATICA 2010 recorded 708 exhibitors. The trade fair took place in four completely filled halls on 44,000 sq. m. The share of foreign exhibitors was 32 percent. A total of 42 countries were represented. The satisfaction of the exhibitors is also reflected in the survey results. 96 percent praised the excellent mood in the halls and 77 percent the high quality of visitors.
VDMA Robotics and Automation and Messe München optimistic
The exhibitors summed up the results as positive and are looking optimistically to the future and the current year 2010, following the difficult year of 2009. For example, Thilo Brodtmann, Managing Director of the German VDMA Robotics + Automation remarked:
"Current two-figure growth in the number of orders received as well as stimuli, which are coming from the very successful AUTOMATICA 2010, makes us confident that our growth forecast in the amount of five percent for this year can be adjusted upward. The dynamics, which the market is currently demonstrating, should shorten the catch-up race to the best industry turnover figures of the years 2007/2008.
It was also shown during the trade fair that the initiative Green Automation appropriately describes one of the decisive growth fields for our industry. The challenges presented by energy and resource efficiency as well as economical production of "green" products can only be mastered by increased use of intelligent automation technology."
Norbert Bargmann, Deputy CEO of the Executive Board of Messe München, is proud of the good trade fair result: "The high number of foreign trade fair visitors reflects the international significance of AUTOMATICA. I am very happy that our international marketing efforts have paid off. Our goal was to become even more international. The top decision-makers were there. We achieved this together with VDMA Robotics + Automation and the exhibitors. The alliance with the exhibitors worked well. AUTOMATICA came at the right time to promote the upward trend and business deals."
Prof. Gerd Hirzinger, Director of the Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), explained: “AUTOMATICA is absolutely the top trade fair in the area of Robotics and Automation for us, where we try to show all of our innovations and to which we have coordinated our development cycles. The number of visitors was overwhelming this time, with highly competent visitors not only from Europe, but also from the USA and Asia. We also used AUTOMATICA to intensify our collaboration with industry partners, including with respect to new application areas such as surgery robotics."
Arne Lakeit, Production and Plant Planning Manager at Audi AG; also explained,: "I find the wide range of topics, which are offered at AUTOMATICA, to be extremely interesting. Not only the developments from robotics, but also many areas of automation are presented here. The exhibitors do justice to this demand at AUTOMATICA."
Several platforms provided an outlook of future topics. Experts, researchers and users discussed at the AUTOMATICA Forum or obtained information within the scope of the initiative "Green Automation" about the capability of the industry to produce in a green way and produce green products.
Programme highlights were:
- The "Service Robotics Innovation Platform"
- The three-day double congress "ISR/ROBOTIK 2010", which is considered the most important robotics conference worldwide.
- The two-day SAMPE congress about the challenges of lightweight construction and fibre composite technology.
The next AUTOMATICA will take place from 12 until 15 June 2012.
Posted by Vision Systems Design
