More than 70 thousand trade visitors descended on the Shanghai New International Expo Centre in October to experience the latest developments in the lifting, power, and supply chain industries. Stemming from more than 80 countries, attendees were able to take in the latest offerings from the 2,013 exhibitors that were present across the impressive 139,500sqm exhibition area during the four-day event.
"We witness the industry development and keep up with the trend. Concentrating on the market demand, we are dedicated to penetrating the theme of ‘Smart Manufacturing and Energy Efficiency’ though our combined exhibitions, which deliver right solutions and application system for all the sectors, explains Wolfgang Pech, who is the senior vice president of organisers Deutsche Messe AG.
"The difficulty in attracting women into engineering is down to a combination of things: from the careers advice girls are given in schools, to schools not instilling girls with the confidence to opt for science and maths at A-level, through to employers needing to do more to make their approach to recruitment and retention more female friendly."
While Richmond’s comments on Miliband’s plans are UK-centric, the subject of women in engineering is clearly a global issue. In 2015, Hoist will be taking a closer look at the role of women in the overhead lifting sector so if you wish to discuss the matter and feature in the magazine, please contact us on the details to your left.
Elsewhere in this issue of Hoist, we speak to Straightpoint, the load monitoring technology specialist, which has targeted 30% annual growth in its US operation as part of a fi ve-year expansion strategy at the UKheadquartered business.
We also catch up with Arbil, which is coming off the back of its 50th anniversary in 2013, is ending this year on a high after securing Tractel and Enerpac accreditation and calibration centre statuses. It also has invested in the refurbishment of fi ve wire rope machines, in addition to the successful launch of the Crosby Platinum range. We take a closer look on page 37.
Finally this month, and somewhat fi ttingly, we speak to Street Crane, which has revealed that it has fulfi lled yet another major order for its overhead crane technology. Street confirmed that Tata Group has invested £1.5m on four 12 tonne SWL overhead travelling cranes for its steel distribution centre at Redcar, England.
The depot refi t project, which has taken place in Teeside, was undertaken to improve material processing and boost turnaround times at the centre, which is one of 49 Tata operates nationwide. That marks an impressive end of the year for a company that has gone from strength-to-strength in 2014.
Best of luck to everyone in 2015, which I am sure will be a prosperous year for this fantastic industry. He adds: Obviously, most of the exhibitors continue to invest at our shows for maintaining their competitiveness even during the economy downturn. This is a very positive sign." It’s no doubt that all the participating companies have regarded PTC ASIA, ComVac ASIA, CeMAT Asia and the other concurrent fairs as the market leads and represented by their CEOs on the site for company branding and promoting.
Industry benchmark
Now considered the benchmark for intralogistics and supply chain in the Asia-Pacific region, CeMAT Asia attracted an impressive 490 leading businesses during the October show.
Companies such as TBM Hoist, WTKO Hoist, Heli, Daifuku, Jungheinrich, Crown, Goodsense, Swisslog and the Beijing Materials Handling Research Institute were all present Hans-Georg Frey, chairman of the board of management at Heli explains: "We have participated in CeMAT Asia for years and very happy to see the market leaders here. Our automatic forklift presented on the show can well reflect the development and market demand of the logistic equipment. We are requested by a dozen of meetings from our clients and very satisfied with the show."
Increasing costs
This year’s event was set to a backdrop of transformation in China’s economy with ever-increasing labour costs. CeMAT ASIA comprised eight thematic display areas, that included system integration and solution, conveying equipment, automated guided vehicle (AGV), forklift and parts, hoisting equipment and parts, pallet and storage rack, auto-ID and machine vision, and logistic machine. Such layout design clearly distinguishes targeted user markets.
Returning to this year’s show was the "CeMAT ASIA Innovation Salon" which was a four-day seminar will gather well-known guests to discuss wonderful topics, share industry achievements and grasp the industry trends. The organizers provided a neutral, open and free exchange platform that helped completement the vasy array of keynote speeches, innovation shows and roundtable meetings that took place during each day of the event.
Diverse discussion
Discussions centered around six topics that comprised "Global Logistics Market", "Food Supply Chain and Safety", "Backyard of E-commerce: Logistics and Supply Chain", "Party Storage and Cross-board E-commerce", "Retail: Online to Offline and Offline to Online" and "Future Development of Forklift Industry".
The exhibitors concluded: "CeMAT ASIA adheres to its core values, namely keeping abreast of industry hotspots and latest technology, timely sharing information within the whole industry and jointly promoting the development of China’s logistic equipment and technology." In 2014, it did just that in a particularly successful fashion. Roll on next time.
