THE INTERNATIONAL MACHINE-TOOL EXHIBITION IS PRESENTED AT EMO HANNOVER

 Alongside an image of a large metal sphere that symbolises technology that will change the world, the BIEMH team met at midday in Germany representatives from companies, organisations and the media. This is the image for the campaign with which the next edition of BIEMH was presented today at the EMO fair in Hanover, which plays with the terms “Know/now the future” around time, knowledge and the extremely high level of innovation that characterises the companies exhibiting at the International Machine Tool Exhibition.

The event was attended by Arantxa Tapia, Minister for Economic Development and Infrastructures of the Basque Government; Xabier Basañez, General Director of Bilbao Exhibition Centre; Xabier Ortueta, Managing Director of AFM Cluster; Sergio Ruiz de Larrea, Commercial Director of Ona Electroerosión; Koldo Arandia, General Director of Ibarmia, and Rafael Idígoras, Managing Director of Soraluce. During a tour of the three stands, all of them shared their vision on the current situation of the sector, their expectations and holding BIEMH 2020.

“The ability to incorporate intelligence into our machines and provide them with connectivity is revolutionising the entire design process, with new production solutions and opportunities to offer prediction and maintenance systems”, Arantxa Tapia, Minister for Economic Development and Infrastructures of the Basque Government, explained at the opening of the event. “Today, manufacturing industries account for 24.2% of the total in the Basque Country, but we are aware that a large part of the services are part of an advanced industry. The machine tool sector is no stranger to this new industry; we have entered a new industrial world, which we are addressing through the Basque Industry 4.0 strategy, and in which we would like to include the entire industrial network of the Basque Country. The Basque technology network has united in 2019 around BRTA-Basque Research and Technology Alliance in order to collaborate strategically with the industrial system as a whole, in which machine tools represent its muscle and its DNA. The Biennial Exhibition that we are presenting today will be a meeting point and a place to demonstrate this commitment that the Basque Country is making to added value”, she went on.

Xabier Basañez, General Director of BEC, reiterated the words of the Basque Minister and added that “the technology that will change the future, but is already a reality, will be on show at BIEMH between May 25 and 29 next year. The event will have a wide technological range with great impact on companies’ manufacturing processes”. “BIEMH 2020 will become a unique showcase in which the most innovative technologies, which are revolutionising the machine tool sector at the very highest level, will be present”, he added. High-performance machinery and tailor-made solutions are the offer and the hallmark of BIEMH, the show which is positioned as the leading event in Spain in the field of advanced manufacturing and as one of the most important industrial meetings in Europe.

At its 31st edition, the event returns with strength, bringing together the main distributors, importers, manufacturers to showcase their state-of-the-art developments to visitors and buyers from all over the world. Although the commercialization of BIEMH has only started recently, the leading companies of components and accessories, chip removal machinery, tools, forming machinery, robotics and automation, metrology and quality control sectors, have confirmed, among others, their participation.

For his part, Xabier Ortueta, General Director of AFM Cluster, explained that their sales, imports and consumption volumes “have been growing in Spain over the last few years, with the last edition of BIEMH being the best of the decade”. “For 2020, the situation may be somewhat different, but we expect a very high occupancy and an attendance of thousands of quality visitors for a lively edition. The commitment of the offer by Spanish manufacturers to our national fair has always been spectacular, and we will have a fair full of interesting machines and proposals for the market”, he assured.

Its internationality is undoubtedly one of BIEMH’s hallmarks. Therefore, as Basañez said, “the campaign to attract exhibitors is being promoted in a total of 51 countries around the world, having first established a priority group consisting of countries such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, United States, France, Greece, The Netherlands, India, Italy, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey, is also ongoing at a national level”.

BIEMH will also maintain its commitment to encouraging the active participation of exhibitors and visitors, creating a space that favours business contacts, synergies and opportunities. In this way, the VIP Buyer Invitation programme for national and international buyers will be one of the key features to ensure the presence of professionals of the highest interest at the fair. To this end, the event will be promoted in countries such as Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, China, India, Mexico and the United States.

“We have high expectations for this new edition. Spanish industry still needs to continue to renew its equipment and exhibiting companies taking part will have the opportunity to interact with customers who are thinking of buying.”, explained Xabier Ortueta during his speech.

At the same time as the BIEMH fair, Hall 4 of Bilbao Exhibition Centre will turn into “Hall 4.0” to give a live demonstration of the technologies required to successfully tackle the path from innovation to industry 4.0. With a change in the distribution of stands compared to the previous edition, this area will host a new edition of BeDIGITAL, a forum exclusively dedicated to the industrial application of digital technologies; ADDIT3D, the International Trade Show on Additive and 3D Manufacturing, and IMIC-Industrial Maintenance Innovation Conference. The three meetings will share their exhibition area and live demonstrations with an interesting conference programme in which highest level international professionals will take part. In addition, after four successful previous editions, WORKINN will return this year in search of talent to address the new Industry 4.0 recruitment needs.

Over 42,000 people from 61 countries took part BIEMH in 2018, where orders were closed in all sectors. 1,751 exhibiting companies took part. BIEMH is organised by AFM-Advanced Manufacturing Technologies and Bilbao Exhibition Centre (BEC), with the collaboration of the Basque Government and the Spanish Machine Tool Importers Association (AIMHE).

THREE TOP COMPANIES

The first speech in the exhibitors’ section was made by Sergio Ruiz de Larrea, Commercial Director of Ona Electroerosión, who stated that, when we talk about BIEMH, “we are talking about the top event in Spain; a powerful focal point for buyers and investors, not only from Spain but from all over Europe. Investment in advanced technology is the key to developing a powerful, connected industry, and BIEMH is the place to go to make that investment”, he assured.

Koldo Arandia, General Director of Ibarmia, was also categorical in his statements: “The fair allows us to strengthen our links to the internal market. It enables us to publicise and test our new products in a more intimate and trusted environment, as well as being the meeting place for the sector par excellence, where all the main players in the machine tools and advanced manufacturing technologies attend the show. And so do the main customer sectors to whose needs our products and services respond”. “I would like to highlight the very strong development of an event that has been constantly able to update and reinvent itself, accommodating new areas that force us to stay at the forefront”, Arandia added.

Lastly, Rafael Idígoras, Managing Director of Soraluce, stated that “both the sector and BIEMH, its trade fair par excellence, are prepared to face the challenges ahead with the best assurances of success”. That is why, Idígoras emphasised, “we are once again committed to coming to Bilbao with our most advanced solutions to improve the competitiveness of our customers”.