The 2009 German parliamentary elections are over, and are now providing for straightforward political circumstances; MOTEK 2009 is over as well, and has firmed up its clear-cut position as the undisputed number one amongst international trade fairs for production and assembly automation, and industrial handling. Indeed, the one has a good deal to do with the other. Confidence-building signals are absolutely essential for the slowly recovering economy, so that business enterprises will once again look optimistically to the future and invest in further streamlining. Seen from this point of view, exceptional importance can be attributed to the 28th MOTEK international trade fair for handling and assembly technology and the BONDexpo trade fair for industrial bonding technologies. The trade fair duo took place from the 21st through the 24th of September at the Stuttgart Exhibition Centre and attracted well over 30,000 expert visitors from all over the world.
More than 30,000 Expert Visitors from 61 Nations
Just under 1100 exhibitors from 21 countries presented visitors with worldwide offerings including components, assemblies, subsystems and complete solutions for automation in production and assembly, as well as bonding, encapsulation, sealing and foaming technologies. The exhibitors reported strong, and above all concrete interest, and after everything was said and done, they were highly satisfied with visitor numbers and good prospects for interesting post-event business. The 31,284 expert visitors from 61 nations verify the great significance of MOTEK and BONDexpo as the world’s most important industry and business meeting place where mechatronic automation, robotics, industrial handling, material flow in production and assembly, as well as bonding and joining technologies are concerned.
Rising Levels of Acceptance in Politics and the Economy
The importance of MOTEK and BONDexpo has also been recognised by numerous representatives of German politics and various associations. For example, Baden-Württemberg’s minister for economic affairs Ernst Pfister toured the event on its third day, and the Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation held its “Training Congress for Human Resources Managers” and staffed the “Research and Training” theme park. The theme parks, which were offered for the first time to this extent, met with great success on the whole, which has not only been confirmed by the exhibitors and the participants, but rather by numerous expert visitors as well. The concept of getting users and potential suppliers involved with new, promising topics in a targeted fashion at a very early stage is thus gaining considerable momentum, which was made plainly apparent by the well established “Mechatronics” theme park which was frequented to a greater extent than ever before, thanks to support provided by the Mechatronics Competence Network BW e.V.
A Sharper Competitive Edge with Automation
Strong media interest must also be emphasised, which was already apparent at the opening press conference. A total of 362 representatives of the daily papers, the business press and above all the international trade press registered for the event, and various camera teams were on-site as well from TV broadcasters such as SWR, N24, RegioTV and more. Interviews conducted with numerous expert visitors and exhibitors all gave the clear impression that MOTEK took place at precisely the right time, because companies are once again plucking up courage and are recognising the necessity of positioning themselves more effectively with regard to production and assembly, which will enable them to meet the challenge of ever tougher global competition in the future as well. Against a backdrop which makes it clear that initial investments will not be targeted at expanding capacity, but rather at replacing machines, and that investment in new equipment will only result from the implementation of new technologies and processes, OEM and retrofit automation solutions which make use of handling systems, robots, feeders and material conveyor technology are more important than ever before – and MOTEK, as well as BONDexpo, have pointed out feasible approaches to targeted investment in detail solutions and complete systems.
Six Offene Systeme GmbH
