DEARBORN, Mich. - March 8, 2004 - The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) announces today the return of three exciting manufacturing events for 2005. The Cleveland Advanced Productivity Exposition (APEX), the Twin Cities APEX and the HOUSTEXR APEX event will be taking place in 2005 in Ohio, Minnesota, and Texas, respectively.
Expositions scheduled to take place in these markets in 2003 were postponed in response to the recession's impact on the machine-tool industry.Improved conditions in the overall economy, coupled with the positive trends shown in the last few U.S. Machine Tool Consumption Reports, suggest growing interest in machine-tool purchases. SME surveyed these geographic areas this year and found that several manufacturing companies were eager for us to bring these events back.
These companies shared their capital equipment purchase plans for the next few years and expressed a need for these tradeshows to happen again in their regions so they can compare suppliers and products more efficiently. SME's Advanced Productivity Expositions (APEX) Are Unique.The APEX series of events are unique to the industry because the events represent and are co-sponsored by:* The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) - representing the end user* The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) - representing the machine tool builder, and * The American Machine Tool Distributors Association (AMTDA)- representing the machine tool distributor No other manufacturing tradeshow incorporates all three important segments of the manufacturing enterprise into one event.
The complete 2005 APEX schedule of events include:HOUSTEX APEXMarch 1-3, 2005Houston, TexasWESTEC APEXApril 4-7, 2005Los Angeles, Calif.Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing Spring 2005Twin Cities APEXMay 3-5, 2005Minneapolis, Minn.EASTEC APEXMay 24-26, 2005W.
Springfield, Mass.Cleveland APEX June 7-9, 2005Cleveland, OhioMidwest Machine Tool ShowSeptember 13-15, 2005Novi, Mich.FABTECH International November 13-16, 2005Chicago, Ill.For information on exhibiting, sponsoring or attending the APEX series of events, call the SME Resource Center at 800-733-4763, or visit the SME Web site, www.sme.org , for details on each of the regional events.
About SME The Society of Manufacturing Engineers is the world's leading professional society supporting manufacturing education. Through its member programs, publications, expositions, and professional development resources, SME promotes an increased awareness of manufacturing engineering and helps keep manufacturing professionals up to date on leading trends and technologies.Headquartered in Michigan, SME influences more than half a million manufacturing engineers and executives annually. The Society has members in 70 countries and is supported by a network of hundreds of chapters worldwide.
