Successful Motek 2019 with Arena of Integration

The 38th Motek – International Trade Fair for Production and Assembly Automation – together with the 13th Bondexpo – International Trade Fair for Adhesive Technologies – successfully passed the stage on Thursday evening. A total of 976 exhibitors from 32 countries came to Stuttgart to present innovations in the fields of production and assembly automation as well as joining and bonding. This year’s highlight was the integrative theme park Arena of Integration (AoI) in Hall 6: 36 participating companies provided concrete answers to current questions about intelligent production and process chains in connection with digital applications with 29 networked use cases.

“The world’s leading trade fair Motek in the heart of the SME sector is the right place at the right time for the Arena of Integration to present networked Industry 4.0 in a practical, hands-on way,” said Senator E.h. Wolfgang Wolf, Executive Member of the Board of the Baden-Württemberg Industry Association (LVI). From the very beginning, he was enthusiastic about the “super and highly topical idea” and had the AoI production islands shown to him at the trade show with great interest. In fact, trade fair promoter P. E. Schall, in cooperation with the Mechatronics Baden-Württemberg State Network, has set a milestone with the AoI and demonstrated where the journey is headed for industrial manufacturing processes: digitization requires networking, holistic engineering and cooperative project implementation.

“The Arena of Integration is the best example of how German technology companies are world leaders, especially when they network and perform together. What we can experience at the Arena is not only a unique and innovative approach to trade fair design. It is also the key to how German medium-sized “hidden champions” can position themselves internationally in the future. The trade fair company P. E. Schall has not only recognized this opportunity in a remarkable manner, but has also actively seized it with the Arena of Integration”, explains Thomas Bonschab, Managing Director of TiNC International GmbH and designated board member of the German Society for International Technology Transfer (DGIT).

Heldele Automation from Salach came to Motek this year as an exhibitor because the AoI was launched. “This cooperation is on the best footing,” stated Managing Director David Pietsch. “Really positively surprised by the targeted inquiries” at the AoI stations, Gerald Loser, Head of Sales and Human Resources Development at Heldele Mechatronik in Lenningen, commented: “Customers have already made specific inquiries here.” Philipp Echteler, responsible for digitalization and IIoT at Balluff, also expressed his delight: “The network here is great. Everyone here is up for it!”

The AoI as part of the Motek had already attracted attention in the run-up to the trade fair, so that many personalities from politics and business had marked a visit in their calendars. A delegation from the Ministry of Economics of the State of Baden-Württemberg also took a personal look at the AoI on Thursday: “The arena is a profitable platform for networking among the players, ” she said appreciatively during the tour.

Thomas Kathöfer, Chief Executive of the Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AiF), which oversees “Industrielle Gemeinschaftsforschung” (IGF) and the “Central Innovation Program for SMEs” (ZIM) in close cooperation with the BMWi, summed up his impression of the AoI: “The arena really hits the spot!” It is a promising format for addressing the multifaceted challenges of digitizing business processes, he said. “This is a convincing demonstration: The smart networking of promising solution concepts from players with complementary competencies is the royal road to innovation success.”

This is the way of Motek: Smart Solutions for Production and Assembly! This year, the world’s leading trade fair for production and assembly automation has set a benchmark, not least thanks to the AoI concept. Representatives from companies, associations, business and politics visited the trade show and theme park; their statements and quotes are summarized at www.arena-of-integration.de/kompetenzbereiche.

Several foreign delegations, including visitors from as far away as Brazil, sought answers to questions about modern future manufacturing processes during their tour of AoI. A group from Turkey with representatives from industry and training institutes had become aware of the theme park via the AoI website and had traveled to Motek specifically for this reason. Her interests included energy efficiency and resource conservation in manufacturing. The guests summarized the benefits as follows: “Here, trade visitors will find practical topic networking and realistic process sequences that are not presented anywhere else in this holistic form”.

The exhibitors of the Motek/Bondexpo trade fair duo had prepared many brand-new innovations for their trade visitors: from laboratory conveyor belts for LED UV applications to new linear motor concepts, machine vision systems, gripper concepts and screwdriving technologies to new cobots. Once again, the trade show concept proved that Motek is the industry event for production and assembly automation par excellence. At no other trade show in the world will trade visitors get such a comprehensive overview in the field of rapidly changing process automation. The fact that digitalization and consequently changes in adhesive bonding technology are also “of extremely high relevance” was emphasized by Professor Bernd Mayer from the Fraunhofer Institute IFAM Bremen, which has been one of the exhibitors for 13 years and uses Motek/Bondexpo as the exact platform for this.

With the Safety and Automation Forum, the Exhibitor Forum, the VDI Forum and the lecture program of the Arena of Communication (AoC) as the continuing communication format of the AoI, Motek/Bondexpo created excellent opportunities for trade visitors to take away current knowledge and know-how at first hand and to enter into direct professional exchange with the speakers and experts. Once again this year, the festive award ceremony of the handling award found the right setting with the Motek to appropriately honor the award winners.

Motek/Bondexpo is traditionally a user-oriented “working fair”. A satisfied 35,165 trade visitors livened up the six halls over four days of the show. This year, too, the trade fair organizer created an optimal business atmosphere for both exhibitors and trade visitors: With four lounges – workstation, espresso bar, refreshment zone, rest area – in the peripheral areas of each hall, attractively designed areas were available where everyone was welcome: electricity, Internet, coffee, water or simply a quiet armchair – this is what hospitality looks like.

The globally recognized information, communication and business platform Motek is a reflection of the dynamically changing industrial production technology. Trade visitors will find answers to their questions on the way to the Smart Factory in a practical atmosphere. Nowhere else can trade fair visitors from industrial practice get a comparably comprehensive picture of what the modern manufacturing process must look like as an overall system in the context of progressive, end-to-end digitization of automation in order to be and remain efficient, economical and competitive. The proven and successful trade show concept will be continued in 2020: The next industry event Motek/Bondexpo flanked by the AoI theme park will take place from 05. until 08 October 2020 will take place.