What makes us special? We are trendsetters, a platform for new technology and a window into the future," explains a bullish Rohde. "CeMAT is international and business is international, and we are now seen as a platform for success."
The director of CeMAT events worldwide at Deutsche Messe is in confident mood ahead of the show that runs from 31 May – 3 June in Hannover, Germany this year.
Looking at the last German event, Rohde says that 83% of those in attendance were decision makers, with 1.5m leads generated throughout the show’s duration culminating in around €10bn of business being made. In 2016, Rohde and his team anticipate around 50,000 visitors to attend from 65 countries, an increase from the 2014 event. But what is also interesting to Rohde is that, while the CeMAT portfolio expands across the globe, there has been no drop-off from its international visitor base. Quite the opposite.
"Interestingly, the more we hold events outside of Europe, the more we see attendance from these geographies, so it’s quite the contrary. So while events such as CeMAT Shanghai see very high levels of attendance, we are also seeing visitors from these places also come to events in Germany," he explains.
According to Rodhe, CeMAT will maintain its product categories from previous events and as a result, it will place a particular emphasis on its ‘Move & Lift’ portfolio.
"This has historically been the biggest and strongest area for us, while the crane segment in Germany is a multi-billion Euro business, so this is not changing. If anything, it is growing this year," he says. This expansion is realised in the introduction of the newly-designed display area known as the ‘Cranes & Lifting Equipment Pavilion’ that will be housed in Hall 27.
As with other core areas of the logistics industry, Rodhe says, the cranes and lifting equipment sector faces major challenges from the growing trend towards digital integration and Industry 4.0.
"Ergonomics and digitalization are the defining features of the workplace in production and logistics," they explain. "The manufacturers of cranes and crane systems have to adjust to the challenges of the new working environment, and at the upcoming CeMAT will be showcasing their latest products in this area."
Wolfgang Pech, senior vice-president at Deutsche Messe, adds: ""We’ve provided an excellent platform here for the industry to present their achievements in a dynamic environment.
"Manufacturers of cranes and lifting equipment will be demonstrating their own strengths, and showing visitors how their products can be integrated into tomorrow’s fully networked and automated logistics chains."
It is this issue of the integration of heavy equipment into rapidly evolving and developing supply chains that will come under a particular focus at this year’s event. "To get the full benefit of the new technology, our businesses will have to master many challenges. For many companies, the main hurdles are high investment costs and a not very clear idea of the benefits that will result," explains Wilfried Neuhaus-Galladé, managing director of Witten-based supplier of lifting equipment J.D.Neuhaus.
Neuhaus-Galladé, who is also a managing member of the VDMA’s Association for Materials Handling and Intralogistics, insists that the crane industry must, and will, meet this challenge. He also explains that customer-specific solutions will figure "more prominently" in the future, in terms of the engineering and the complexity of the systems. "As our core business is compressed air as a power source, the challenge for us is to develop electro-pneumatic control systems that make our products compatible with digitalization", says Neuhaus-Galladé. "But given the punishing conditions under which our lifting equipment and cranes generally operate, this issue tends not to feature very prominently."
For Thomas Kraus, support center director for Stahl CraneSystems, the trend in the crane industry is very much towards intelligent systems and Industry 4.0. "The integration of individual process operations into a single operating package is a development that is being embraced by more and more crane manufacturers," he says.
Elsewhere, Marc Rieser, managing director of Vetter Krantechnik believes that against a background of demographic change, manufacturers need to give serious thought to ways of reducing the workload for staff, so they can increase their productivity over the long term. He adds: "In future we will see more demand from customers for individual solutions tailored to their specific needs, combined with short delivery times. For example, we can now incorporate preventive maintenance modules, which can increase plant availability and reduce downtime for repairs and maintenance."
