September 2008

No. 22

 

Official Final Report:

 

85,143 visitors storm the AMB 2008  

 

Exhibitor and visitor records at the New Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre next to Stuttgart Airport – AMB becomes leading German event of sector

 

The first AMB 2008 in Stuttgart exceeded all expectations – 85,143 trade visitors, totalling 70% more than two years ago, came to the first international exhibition for metal working at the New Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre next door to Stuttgart Airport. They were extremely impressed by the exhibitor’s offering and the excellent traffic infrastructure of the new exhibition centre. For five days, from September 9^th to 13^th, 1,306 exhibitors presented their innovations and developments. Never before in the history of the AMB have so many exhibitors taken part – and they included more global market leaders from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world than ever before. The gross area of 105,200 square metres, an area twice as large as before, was completely rented out straight away. The exhibitors came from 27 countries, 21% from abroad. A result such as this in this key industrial sector has established Stuttgart as one of the most significant high-tech trade fair centres in Germany and Europe. Metal cutting and physio-chemical process machine tools as well as precision tools took centre stage at the AMB. However, products and machines from the area of Quality Assurance were also on show, robots, workpiece and tool handling techniques, computer systems and peripherals, components, modules and accessories.

 

“We are delighted with this outstanding result and are proud to have been able to prove, together with our ideal supporters, the VDMA and VDW, that an AMB in the heartland of machine tool and precision tool manufacture can be successfully expanded into a leading event”, Ulrich Kromer von Baerle, Managing Director of Messe Stuttgart, comments on this happy state of affairs. Dr.-Ing.  Dieter Kress, CEO of the Precision Tools Association in the German Engineering Federation e.V. (VDMA), defined it more precisely: “The AMB was unusually well attended right from the start on the first day of the trade fair, and attendance continued to increase over the next few days. Our member companies are all very happy with how everything has gone during the fair, in particular the high professional quality of the visitors, of whom more than ever before came from abroad. The infrastructure of the new trade fair centre is outstanding.“ Carl Martin Welcker, CEO of the Association of German Machine Tool Manufacturers e.V. (VDW), can confirm this: “Our members are totally satisfied with the extremely successful run of events of the fair. The quality and number of visitors were excellent. It has shown that the concentration of trade fairs is progressing and that the good trade fairs are becoming more high-profile“.

That matches up with the visitors’ opinion, 64% of whom felt that the significance of the AMB would continue to increase. The catchment area of the visitors has increased again. Even though, if the high number of visitors is seen as a whole, more visitors came from Baden-Württemberg, at the same time almost twice as many visitors came from abroad than at the AMB 2006. Altogether, 55 countries were represented. On a country basis, most of the visitors came from Austria, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Poland, Slovenia, Italy, Spain and the Russian Federation, but also from India, Taiwan and Japan. The total number of foreigners was 7%. The international interest in the AMB has increased noticeably. This is also indicated by delegations of visitors from associations in the Russian Federation, India and China.

 

The AMB is a trade fair purely for trade and professional visitors. All visitors (100%) stated that they wanted to catch up on developments at the AMB for professional reasons. Three out of four visitors said that they had investment and purchase intentions, 55% of these would be interested in spending more than 100,000 Euros, while 8% would even be prepared to invest more than 1 million Euros. With regard to their occupations, the visitors came for the large part from production and manufacturing (40%), essentially, however, also from engineering, and business, corporate and plant management, planning and process planning as well as research and development. Looking at the visitors’ sectors, machine construction, the metal work and processing industry, the automotive industry and vehicle manufacturing, tool construction and mould making, metal construction enterprises as well as the iron, steel and metal goods industry and the components suppliers were most strongly represented and thus formed the main target groups of the exhibitors.

 

Dr. Rüdiger Kapitza, CEO of the Gildemeister AG in Bielefeld, confirms the high level of visitors’ interest: “We are completely satisfied and are reckoning with very good, positive business transactions. There are no signs of any recessive tendencies in Baden-Württemberg, quite the opposite, there are several requirements for 2009. In my opinion, and from what I’ve heard from colleagues in the industry, the AMB urgently needs a further two halls, as it’s now become the flagship and the largest and most important trade fair in the industry, after the EMO. We’ll be back in 2010 and hope to have a considerably larger booth.“ Kenneth Sundberg, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development from Sandvik Coromant Deutschland, based in Düsseldorf, also feels that “this is absolutely the most important trade fair of the future in Germany. The AMB 2008 was fantastic, we are totally satisfied.“

 

The majority of the exhibitors were very satisfied with the number of interested parties (91%) as well as the visitors’ qualifications (96%), or at least evaluated these as average. 95% assessed the business success as very good to average, 64% reckoned with a very good to good post-fair business, a further 32% believed that it would at all events be average. For 59% of the exhibitors, the AMB gained in importance, mainly due to the new trade fair centre, the location in the heart of the user base and the improved traffic infrastructure. Moreover, 49% of these exhibitors are of the opinion that the AMB is the most important industry trade fair in South Germany, 26% even consider it to be the most important industry event in Germany.  The goals of the exhibitors focused on customer conversations, maintenance of regular customers and new business development, which have been achieved consistently on a good to very good basis. In point of fact, there were a large number of new customers at the AMB this year, 45% of the visitors said it was their first time in Stuttgart. Nearly every third visitor (28%) will not be attending any other industry trade fairs, which means that you can only meet this clientele at the AMB. The business location of Baden-Württemberg offers the perfect platform for the AMB, in the exhibitors’ opinion. The exhibitors estimate the current situation of their sector as good (grade 1.9).

 

Other statements from exhibitors:

Lothar Horn, Managing Director, Paul Horn GmbH, Tübingen: “The AMB was fantastic. We have never had such a terrific response within such a short time, from 9 a.m. to almost 7 p.m. there was a continuous crowd of visitors at our booth. Many of the visitors who were deterred by the old trade fair centre and who stopped coming are now returning. The AMB here today is an absolute success story.“

 

Irene Adler, Marketing, Mori Seiki, Wernau: “Visitors came from everywhere to our booth, some of them even came by charter flights. The onslaught of visitors was huge, straight off, the first day was incredibly heavy. We are completely satisfied and have nothing negative to report.“

 

Gerhard Knienieder, member of the Executive Board of Emuge-Werk, Nuremberg: “We came to the AMB with high expectations and these have been more than exceeded. The AMB will become the dominant trade fair for the industry in Germany. The visitors here in Stuttgart are very special, you won’t find this quality of visitors anywhere else.“

 

Uwe Fischer, Department Manager Marketing at Yamazaki Deutschland GmbH, Göppingen: “The AMB was fantastic. We are totally satisfied with the way the trade fair has gone.” 

 

Marcus Kurringer, Marketing Manager at Heller, Nürtingen: “We are thrilled with the AMB and will only be exhibiting at this trade fair and the EMO in future. We had more qualitative conversations than expected and reckoned with more walk-in customers. But all visitors came with a particular concern or even with specific projects. The AMB 2010 is set for us.“

 

Dr. Fred Steiner, Head of Trade Fairs, Association of German Machine Tool Manufacturers e.V. (VDW), Frankfurt/Main DW: “The new AMB is a gigantic masterstroke.“  

 

Kay Krüger, Channel Business Manager Manufacturing Solutions Central Europe, Autodesk, Munich. “The AMB was a very positive trade fair for us. We don’t sell directly, but were with eight business partners together at one booth. What makes the AMB so enjoyable is that most of the classic visitors come with a specific purpose, nobody comes just to look around. A high level of investment propensity was perceptible, we saw no signs of recessive tendencies. We had a high proportion of decision-makers among our visitors. 80% of the appointments made in advance took place, which is a very good quota for trade fairs. We want to come back in 2010.“

 

Henry H. Parrey, Managing Director, Acadis, Wiesbaden: “We presented ourselves as co-exhibitors at the PTC partner booth. The whole run of events at the fair was altogether very positive, the quality and number of visitors was very good. Process optimisation in production was the topic with the most frequent inquiries. We’ll definitely be back in 2010.“

 

Olivier Martial, Sales Manager of Forécreu, Essen: "The new trade fair centre has enabled the AMB to achieve a new dimension – more exhibitors, a more improved, thematic partitioning of the halls, easy accessibility. The only thing we regret is the rather weak participation of French companies in this leading European fair in the field of machine tools and metal working. We have already made a note of the date of the next AMB in two years.“

 

Hana Modlitbova, Marketing at Tajmac- ZPS, a.s., Zlin/Czech Republic: “The AMB is the most important trade fair for the industry. Several trade and professional visitors came to our booth and we were also able to establish important contacts with other exhibitors. We’ll definitely be back in 2010.“

 

Pavel Antonin, Sales at TOS KURIM in Kurim/Czech Republic: “We are very satisfied with our participation at the trade fair and have found new customers and manufacturers.“

 

Lionel Delaunay, Technical Director at Tréfilerie-Périllat, Marignier/France: "Everything worked wonderfully, including the organisation. The new trade fair centre is very good and we are now waiting for follow-up orders.“

 

Martin Danielczick, Sales Manager, Belin Yvon sa, Lavancia/France: “The quality of the visitors was very good, the number of visitors at our booth was good. We particularly liked the new trade fair centre, which is really exceptional. The whole organisation was also very good.“ 

Michael Brückmann, Marketing Manager, Dassault Systems Deutschland, Stuttgart: “We had a very good start and a good number of contacts, but will have to adjust our orientation more to the visitors at the next AMB, as they weren’t the usual CAT-PRO clientele of the past. The visitors were strongly orientated towards machine construction and so we should have shown more in the NC field, as there was a lot of interest in that area..“ 

 

Hannah Bernhardt, Sales, transline Deutschland, Reutlingen: “We agreed around 80 appointments in advance, because being well prepared for a trade fair is essential for us as a service provider. We produce technical documentation and technical translations. Good documentation says a lot about the company. We visited both existing and potential customers at their booths, or they came directly to our booth. The experience was very positive for us. We had a lot of interested customers and reckon accordingly with business deals following the AMB.“ 

 

The AMB has not only expanded with regard to the exhibition area, but the supporting programme also offered a spectrum as never before, with speech events, special shows and competitions on just about all industry-relevant topics, supervised by renowned associations, institutes and specialised publishers. “Cutting of the future“ was the motto of the HSC special show of the Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW) of the Technical University of Stuttgart. The Production Engineering Colloquium (FrK) of the University of Stuttgart was focusing on “Technologies and Processes for Production Tools“. As a cooperation market, the matchmaking event b2fair (business to fair) brought companies together for the purpose of a business partnership. The subject of “security“ was the focus of the North/South German Metal Industry Liability Insurance Association on the special show stage. 

 

However, the item “Young People and Training“ took centre stage, as the lack of engineers and skilled labourers is still an obstacle to innovation for the industry. The VDMA presented the education initiative “Think-Ing.“, for up-and-coming engineers, which attempts to awaken school leavers’ interest in technical studies. The VDW held a special show entitled “Mechanical Engineers – Jobs with Power“, an initiative for supporting young talent in machine tool manufacture, in which renowned companies presented both themselves and interesting insights into the daily working world, together with their trainees.

 

The German Trainee Championships Skills Germany for CNC milling and CNC lathing also took place at the AMB, seeking the best apprentices in Germany. Andreas Seeburger from Chiron in Tuttlingen was declared German champion in CNC milling, while Daniel Zelmer from Gildemeister in Bielefeld won the title for CNC lathing. The winners will represent Germany at the 40th World Skills Trainee Championships in Calgary in 2009.

 

In the competition for the “Lathe Operator of the Year“, in which trained lathers competed against each other, Rolf Freimüller from the CNC metal-cutting technique D’Onofrio from Salach beat out the other competitors in an exciting battle for the winner’s cup. His task was to program a workpiece at the AMB externally on a laptop live within two hours and then to completely process it on a vertical MAG Hessapp lathe. As the best lathe operator 2008 he can look forward to a trip to the USA with a visit to the MAG plants in Cincinnati and Fond du Lac.

 

The AMB 2010 will take place again in Stuttgart from September 21st to 25th 2010.

from：eastpo.net