Events News

To just name a few, ABB, Epson, Kawasaki, Kuka, Mitsubishi, Schunk, Stäubli, Universal Robots, Franka Emika and Yaskawa are all on the exhibitor list for HANNOVER MESSE 2018, which essentially reads like a Who's Who of the robotics industry. These robotics companies, systems integrators and providers of gripper systems and more will be showcasing their Smart Factory solutions under the banner of the show's lead theme of ‘Integrated Industry – Connect & Collaborate’.

What do you do when you need some serious help and knowledge about running different aspects of a successful manufacturing site? A good start would be to attend the Manufacturing Management Show which took place 22-23rd November at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. However if you missed out on this year’s show do not fear, as Engineering Specifier Editor Anna Flockett went along and learnt a lot for you.

The manufacturer of networking, connectivity and cable products, Belden who work in signal transmission solutions for mission-critical applications, were exhibiting at SPS Drives 2017 with a lot of solutions to showcase to the 70,000 visitors who also attended the show. Electronic Specifier went along to the Belden booth, which was a platform for the latest IIoT innovations and experience the newest products and solutions for industrial communication the company had to offer.

At the SPS Drives show in Nuremberg, the Avnu Alliance (Avnu), Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), and OPC Foundation took this as an opportunity to announce their collaboration with IT-OT industry leaders to advance industrial device interoperability and to show the progress made in bringing the open, unified communication standard OPC UA over Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) to market.

At the SPS Drives show in Nuremberg which took place last month, Renesas Electronics announced the availability of the new RZ/N1 microprocessor (MPU) Solution Kit designed to support various industrial network applications including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), intelligent network switches, gateways, operator terminals and remote I/O solutions.

The CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) described the recent SPS Drives show as a great success this year, as the level of interest from visitors was a high testament to the increasing global acceptance of CC-Link IE and CC-Link. Double-digit growth year on year for the last decade has seen the installed base of CC-Link IE and CC-Link devices approach the 20 million mark, and the number of partner companies has now passed 3,000, making CLPA one of the largest open network associations worldwide.

As there is only a few months to go now, before the doors open to MACH 2018 at the NEC in Birmingham, the team behind the exhibition have announced that visitor registration is now live. MACH 2018 takes place from the 9-13th April 2018 and will be located in a new home on the atrium side of the NEC, in Halls 17, 18, 19, 20, 6 and 7.

Mitsubishi Electric had a very busy show at this year’s SPS Drives showcasing a range of new products and solutions from collaborative robots, to modular linear transfer systems and smart carriages, especially as the company was like many, concentrating on the big focus of the show Industry 4.0 and digitalisation. Anna Flockett, Engineering Specifier editor attended the Mitsubishi press breakfast at the SPS show, where the first innovation that was easily noticed was the demonstration of production in an Industry 4.0 environment which included a new collaborative robot, working together with an operator without safety barriers.

All set and ready to return to the NEC in Birmingham, England, from 9th to 13th April 2018, is MACH, the UK’s premier manufacturing technologies exhibition, which will see a new look and location. The biennial exhibition has over 100 years of heritage and a reputation for being at the forefront of the latest advances in engineering.

With next year’s MACH just around the corner and with Industry 4.0 and digitalisation being the centre of hot conversation topics, it’s not a surprise that the industry has seen a 3% growth since last year. Electronic Specifier’s Anna Flockett recently went to visit the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre’s (AMRC) Factory 2050, as it has partnered up with the MTA who together will be demonstrating a cost-effective adaptation of Industry 4.0 Technologies at MACH 2018.