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Smart Industry Expo expands the Drives Show by 20%

20 December, 2017

The 2018 Drives & Controls Show will be at least 1,000m2 bigger than the 2016 exhibition – an increase of more than 20% –  thanks to the addition of the new Smart Industry Expo event. More than 100 companies have already signed up to exhibit at the Drives Show, which takes place from 10–12 April at the Birmingham NEC, with a further 25 booking stands for the new event, which is dedicated to the factory of the future.

The entrance to the Smart Industry Expo will be dominated by a double-stand occupied by Schneider Electric, covering around 150m2 – twice the area that the company had at the previous Drives show in 2016. Another exhibitor transferring to the new event is the sensor-maker ifm electronic, which has also increased its stand space, by 20m2.

The Smart Industry Expo has also attracted Festo (which has not appeared at the Drives Show for many years), as well as other well-known names such as Universal Robots, Harting, Panduit, Sigmatek, Senseye, Codra, Exor and Applied Automation.

First-time exhibitors in the Drives & Controls Show will include Charter Controls, Wiska, ETA Enclosures, Eldon, EBM Papst, Finder, Elmo Motion, Procentec, Fischer Connectors and Infranor. TEC Motors is returning with a 128m2 stand that is 60% larger than the one it had at the 2016 show. Phoenix Contact is more than quadrupling the size of its stand from 16m2 in 2016 to 72m2 in 2018.

Other returning exhibitors include Beckhoff, B&R, Rittal, Siemens/HMK, Weidmuller, Danfoss, WEG, Eplan, Beijer, Wago, Mitsubishi, Radwell, IGE-XAO and KEB. Gambica and the European Transmission Distributors Association will again be hosting pavilions where members will be promoting their activities.

The 2018 Drives & Controls Show, combined with the new Smart Industry Expo, will be even bigger than the 2016 event (shown above)

Following the success of the inaugural robotics demonstration zone at the 2016 show, this feature is returning with working displays of the latest in robot technologies, including collaborative devices. Elsewhere, visitors will be able to test their driving skills on a Formula 1 simulator on the Megadyne stand.

Alongside Drives & Controls and the Smart Industry Expo, there will be three other events organised by DFA Media – Fluid Power & Systems, Plant & Asset Management and Air-Tech. At the heart of this cluster of shows, visitors will find the Knowledge Hub, where a series of seminars and panel discussions will examine the theme, Smart Factory – Concept to Reality. Contributors will include leading industry figures and experts from organisations such as the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, Innovate UK, EEF, Gambica, the Manufacturing Technology Centre, Bara and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory.

The exhibitions and events will take place alongside the MTA’s Mach manufacturing technology event. For the first time, all of these shows will be located in the “new” section of the NEC.




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