What in the world is happening? Find out at Hanover Messe 2013

Summary

February 2013

By Bill Lydon, Editor

I recently attended the 2013 Hannover Messe (Trade Fair) preview in Hannover, Germany on January 31, 2013. This preview reinforced my opinion that it is essential for automation professionals to attend industry events so they can gain a competitive advantage. At these events, professionals have the opportunity to improve knowledge, learn new ideas and concepts, and evaluate new products. A quick look around at things in your plant, home, community, and city should make it obvious that manufacturing is important to the economy. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), global trade is based on goods not services. 80% of world trade among regions is merchandise trade. Leadership companies are first to applying new knowledge, technology and ideas to gain an advantage and win in the marketplace. The investment in people attending trade fairs is a knowledge investment that is fundamental to maintaining and improving manufacturing competitiveness.

January 31, 2013 Hannover Messe (Trade Fair) preview in Hannover, Germany, Dr. Jochen Koeckler, Member of the Managing Board of Deutsche Messe

The 2013 Hannover Messe preview was a sneak peak at the range of opportunities offered at the event on April 8-12, 2013. Approximately 195,000 visitors attended the 2012 Hannover Messe and the 2013 event already has more exhibitors than 2012 with expectations for higher attendance, and more substance than ever.

Hannover Messe 2013 will feature over 6,000 exhibitors from 61 countries focused around five core themes:

• Industrial Automation & IT ≈ 1,200 Exhibitors
• Energy and Environmental Technology ≈ 1,500 Exhibitors
• Power Transmission and Control ≈ 1,100 Exhibitors includes MDA - Motion, Drive & Automation
• Industrial Supply, Production Technologies and Services ≈ 1,500 Exhibitors
• Research and Development ≈ 1,500 Exhibitors

Holistic

Hannover Messe offers attendees a holistic perspective on a the full range of technology by incorporating 11 flagship trade fairs:

• Industrial Automation - Process, factory and building automation systems
• Motion, Drive & Automation - Electrical & Mechanical Power Transmission and Control Technologies
• Energy - generation, supply, transmission and distribution to the transformation and storage of electricity.
• Wind - plant, components and services
• MobiliTec - hybrid and electric mobility technologies
• Digital Factory - process integration and interdisciplinary product development. (Includes: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Manufacturing Execution (MES), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
•  ComVac - compressed air and vacuum technology
• Industrial Supply - Industrial Subcontracting and Lightweight Construction
• SurfaceTechnology – Coating, Treatment & finishing of surfaces
• IndustrialGreenTec - Environmental Technology for sustainable production.
• Research & Technology - Research, Development and Technology Transfer

80 Companies met with press to discuss innovations to be presented at Hannover Messe 2013

Metropolitan Solutions

In addition, Metropolitan Solutions will be a concurrent stand-alone fair for the fast growing "City of the Future." Metropolitan Solutions is the largest international show presenting cross-industry technological solutions to meet the present and future urban challenges.

Metropolitan Solutions will be housed in Hall 1, which and features an innovative new "City of the Future" format.

TectoYou

The TectoYou fair attracts and inspires young peoples’ interest in technology encouraging them to pursue careers in engineering and other technical Ô¨Åelds.

Russia Partner Country

Each year Hannover Messe invites a partner country to foster worldwide relations.  This year the partner country is Russia, with the 6^th largest economy in the world. Russia will have a strong showcase to display and illustrate their offerings with keynote themes including energy transmission and distribution, international energy business, industrial processing and production, technology partnerships, R&D innovations, strategic partnerships, and foreign investment. Dr. Jochen Koeckler, Member of the Managing Board of Deutsche Messe, commented, “Russia plans to invest vast sums of money in upgrading its production systems, energy sector and general infrastructure over the coming years.” “International industrial companies can help Russia achieve its long-term technology modernization objectives by providing much-needed technological know-how and investment.”

Integrated Industry

Hannover Messe 2013 will be staged under the banner of "Integrated Industry." This highlights the fair's key focus on the growing integration of all areas of industry. As Dr. Koeckler noted is his presentation, “It is obvious for a country to be strong in industrial production and to be competitive that industrial automation and IT are hugely important.” “That is why it is a very important area at Hannover Messe.” Hannover Messe is an environment that fosters synergy between a wide range of disciplines and specialties. Synergy is the working together of multiple things to produce a result greater than the sum of individual components. Manufacturing companies need to breakdown the rigid silos of departments that do not communicate or understand of each other’s challenges and processes. An environment that encourages cross-departmental cooperation fosters higher level of problems solving and ideas.

Professor Manfred Broy, Department of Software & Systems Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science, TU Munich made a presentation at the Hannover Messe 2013 preview titled, “Connected Industry - Cyber-Physical Systems.” The professor described the evolution of the digital factory as linking powerful embedded systems in machines, devices, and sensors. "Machines, industrial equipment, work pieces and system components will soon be capable of exchanging data in real-time." This coupled with powerful analytic software leveraging technologies including cloud computing will make manufacturing systems more responsive and agile. Themed presentations during Hannover Messe 2013 related to these topics include:

• Industrial IT
• Industrial Security & Product Protection
• Wireless Automation & M2M
• Identification, Tracking & Tracing
• Application Park Robotics, Automation & Vision
• MicroTechnology - Smart Systems for Automation
• Mobile Robots & Autonomous Systems
• Integrated Assembly Solutions
• MES Conference
• Visualization and simulation

Thoughts & Observations

To remain competitive, a company needs to constantly expose its people to new ideas, processes, and technology. This is main the reason people from different disciples within a company should attend Hannover Messe. It is easy to be complacent.  Simply staying in the office, while you competitors are actively engaging in events and learning how they can improve and outperform, is a recipe for disaster.

I certainly recommend attending and suggest you use the Hannover Messe 2013 website to plan in advance to get the most from the event. 

Smaller U.S. companies may be able get monetary assistance to participate in foreign trade fairs through the State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) Grant Program. STEP is a 3-year pilot trade and export initiative to offer matching-fund grants to states to assist “eligible small business concerns,” and enter and succeed in the international marketplace. The program’s objectives are to increase the number of small businesses that are exporting, and to increase the value of exports for those small businesses that are currently exporting. STEP services are managed and provided at the local level by state government organizations and has total Federal funding of $60,000,000.