AUTOMATICA 2014 draws a positive balance: more than 10% more visitors and 7% more exhibitors. Trade Fair Managing Director Dr. Reinhard Pfeiffer "The growth rates and the high degree of satisfaction among exhibitors and visitors prove that AUTOMATICA has expanded its leading role." VDMA Robotik + Automation Managing Director Patrick Schwarzkopf added: "AUTOMATICA provides a decisive contribution to a change in production as an innovation platform. Trade visitors from the whole world learn what the future looks like at AUTOMATICA."

Fot: AUTOMATICA 2014, Messe München

Robotics and automation are becoming increasing important globally

A total of 32% of the visitors came from foreign countries, an increase of more than 15%. "The motto of AUTOMATICA – "Optimize Your Production" – is experiencing a boom throughout the whole world," Hans-Dieter Baumtrog explained, Chief Executive Officer of VDMA Robotik + Automation. "It concerns the quality, safety and sustainability of products. Integrated assembly solutions, robotics and industrial machine vision are the key to success in this context! The increasing internationalization of AUTOMATICA is a clear indication of this development." Stefan Kapferer, Permanent State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy: "AUTOMATICA has once again demonstrated the outstanding position of Germany in robotics and automation."

SPARC: 2.8 billion euros for European robotics

The role of the industry is becoming very clear on a European level. Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, announced the world's largest civil robotics promotion program SPARC at AUTOMATICA 2014. With a total volume of 2.8 billion euros, Europe's leading position is to be expanded and consequently more than 240,000 jobs created. Ms. Kroes emphasized: "AUTOMATICA is a perfect opportunity to showcase the latest European robotics technology."

Man and machine will work hand in hand in the future

Fot: AUTOMATICA 2014, Messe München

Robotics and automation are reaching a new dimension with man-machine cooperation. Robots are handling work in the place of people that is monotonous, injurious to health and requires no special job skills. This makes workplaces more productive, flexible and ergonomic. AUTOMATICA also showed the enormous potential for small- and medium-sized firms in numerous examples.

Professional service robotics – a fantastic start

Marketable service robotics created a lot of interest. More than 60 companies, specialized in service robotics with B2B relation, exhibited the outstanding possibilities of intelligent service robots and components from the areas of medicine and nursing, inspection and maintenance as well as logistics. The Berlin-based company Argo Medical Technologies won the first Service Robotics Masters Start-up Award with its exoskeleton suit, which provides paraplegics with the possibility to walk again.

The fourth industrial revolution on the rise

The fourth industrial revolution has no longer been just a vision for quite some time. Trade fair visitors obtained information about the concrete effects of Industry 4.0 on production in live demonstrations and during talks given by experts. "The realization of Industry 4.0 will determine our future, because we can only succeed in establishing a networked, resource-efficient and highly flexible form of doing business in this way," Mr. Kapferer explained.

Good mood among visitors and exhibitors

The range of offers at the trade fair ensured full halls and created a good mood among exhibitors and visitors. The independent market research institute tns infratest determined that 97% of the surveyed visitors found the completeness of the offer good to excellent, and 95% praised the good presence of market leaders. The feedback from exhibitors was correspondingly positive. The mood at the trade fair was good to excellent for 95% of the surveyed companies.

(AUTOMATICA)