The biennial co-located events: Drives & Controls, Smart Industry Expo, Plant & Asset Management, Fluid Power & Systems, and Air-Tech Exhibitions – are once again set to return to Birmingham’s NEC between the 5-7 April 2022, alongside MACH.
With only weeks to go, Drives & Controls Exhibition 2022 and the co-location of events taking place alongside it including Smart industry Expo 2022, has confirmed it is now 98% sold out, reflecting the increasingly optimistic outlook for the manufacturing and engineering sectors.
Drives & Controls Exhibition 2022 will once again bring together key suppliers of state-of-the-art equipment representing the multi-tasking culture of today’s design engineer, covering critical areas such as energy efficiency, machine safety, drives, motion control, robotics, and automation plus much more, all under one roof. With the advent of the smart factory, Drives & Controls Exhibition 2022 is an essential source of technological and engineering information and is fully supported by GAMBICA and EPTDA.
Returning exhibitors include Beckhoff, Rittal, Weidmuller, Mitsubishi Electric, Radwell, Bosch Rexroth, Elmo Motion Control, Binder, Carlo Gavazzi, Eaton Electric, Finder, Harting, Hepco, HMS Industrial, Leuze Electronic, Control Techniques/ Nidec Industrial Automation, Omron, Pilz Automation Technology, Renold, plus many more returnees. While the latest confirmed exhibitors include: EAO, EMAS Electric UK, M Buttkereit Ltd, WEG (UK) Ltd, IDEM Safety, Applied Integration UK Ltd, and Trio Motion Technology, whose President, Tom Alexander, commented: “We’re very happy to return to Drives & Controls Exhibition because it’s an important event to present our growing automation control package to UK machine builders. At Drives & Controls we’ll be presenting Trio’s motion and robotic control solutions for applications including CNC, packaging, and cutting, and we’ll also be publicly showing our SCARA robot solution for the first time in the UK.”
For the latest exhibitor updates and a full exhibitor list please visit: www.drives-expo.com
To complement Drives & Controls Exhibition is the now firmly established Smart Industry Expo, where visitors will have the ideal opportunity to learn about digitalisation and how to prepare and implement a strategy in this smart era as well as being able to discuss a wide range of issues from components to Predictive Maintenance 4.0, Logistics 4.0, and smart grid technologies amongst others. Other areas covered include: components for IT-based automation solutions that will bring fundamental change to all in-factory processes, IT security, as well as smart technologies that manage and coordinate power, gas and heat networks so that capacity can be balanced and optimally deployed across the entire energy system – integrated energy, plus much more.
Manufacturing Technology Centre
New for 2022 is the significant announcement that the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) has confirmed a 100m2 pavilion within Drives & Controls and Smart Industry Expo where it will be joined by its members.
The MTC was established in 2010 as an independent research & technology organisation with the objective of bridging the gap between academia and industry. Its role has also increased to cover not only R&D but also training, advanced manufacturing management and factory design and it now has over 700 employees working with it. The MTC has helped hundreds of companies across a range of industries and over 100 of them have become members of the MTC. Its presence at Smart Industry Expo and Drives & Controls highlights the importance that the MTC attributes to these key sectors.
Alongside Drives & Controls Exhibition and Smart Industry Expo, the co-location also sees the return of Plant & Asset Management Exhibition 2022 – the UK’s premier event for plant, asset, maintenance and works management engineers and directors.
Industry spends huge sums of money maintaining its plant, machinery and building assets and, because of constantly increasing business and financial pressures, there is an on-going need to achieve the maximum performance from those assets. Plant & Asset Management 2022 will therefore showcase the very latest technologies and systems covering:
- Asset Management Systems
- Seals, Bearings, and Lubrication
- Boilers/Burners, Combustion Engineering
- Calibration
- Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)
- Condition Monitoring/Predictive Maintenance
- NDT Equipment/Services
- Oil Analysis
- Remote Monitoring
- Thermographic Equipment
- Temperature Measurement
- Vibration Analysis
- Contract Maintenance, Outsourcing & Management Services
- Energy Management
Plus much more
Exhibitors currently include: SPM Instrument UK, Fixturlaser, Fluke, EA Technology, Keytracker, Pragmatic Maintenance & Reliability, Lee Spring, Maintmaster, Pruftechnik, SEAM Group, Senseye, Sensata, T Cards Direct, Ultimo, plus many more.
Running alongside Plant & Asset Management 2022, Drives & Controls Exhibition and Smart Industry Expo, will also be Air-Tech 2022, which is set to highlight current key themes related to the very latest in air compressor and related technology from companies from around the globe. The event is supported by the British Compressed Air Society (BCAS), and is the UK’s only dedicated event for the compressed air and generators market.
Vanda Jones, the British Compressed Air Society’s executive director, commented on its presence at the key industry event: “As the UK’s only dedicated exhibition for the compressed air, generators and vacuum market, Air-Tech is an ideal chance for visitors to keep up to date with all the latest developments in our industry. For BCAS, it is an ideal opportunity to engage with manufacturers, distributors and end users alike, and for us to provide impartial advice about legislation, standards and technical issues Events like Air-Tech are more vital than ever over the next two years because it brings our industry together to understand issues that affect us all.”
Visitors to Air-Tech will be able to see a wide range of equipment and solutions, including the following:
- Accumulators, actuators, air delivery systems and air motors.
- Compressors, cooler tools and cylinders.
- Vacuum systems and generators.
- Displays & meters.
- Filters, fittings, heat exchangers and hoses.
- Instruments, lubricators, manifolds and mobile compressors.
- Pumps, regulators, sensors, software and valves.
In addition, Fluid Power & Systems 2022, also part of the co-location, will focus on a comprehensive range of hydraulic and pneumatic equipment, together with products that facilitate better electro-mechanic system design and application for improved process automation, control, monitoring and analytics.
Fully supported by the British Fluid Power Association (BFPA), Fluid Power & Systems comprises the largest gathering of world-class companies displaying and demonstrating the latest in mechanical and electro-mechanical equipment.
Paul Cooke, Interim CEO of the British Fluid Power Association, commented that “The British Fluid Power Association is proud to be part of this important event for Fluid Power and Systems.” He added: “As you walk around the show you will see examples of how modern Fluid power will be connected, smart and flexible as well as providing safe and environmentally compatible means of providing motion for the machinery and for the factories of the future.”
This is highlighted by the vast array of technologies being exhibited. In addition, visitors will be able to meet different company divisions in one place, which is emphasised by FlowTech who says that Fluid Power & Systems Exhibition will be the first chance to meet all of its divisions under one roof – Pneumatics, Hydraulics, Industrial, Process Valves and Instrumentation.
Whatever your industrial sector, whether engineering, construction, offshore/marine, oil & gas, agriculture/farming, automotive, aerospace etc., Fluid Power & Systems offers a convenient one-stop shop for all your fluid power and system requirements, including:
- Hydraulics: industrial and mobile, including pumps and power packs, cylinders, valves, motors, heat exchangers, and accumulators. Filters and sealing technologies.
- Pneumatics: valve and valve islands, linear and rotary actuators, air motors, FRLs and other treatment technologies.
- Systems: Electro-hydraulic & pneumatic systems design; CAN bus technology; process automation; monitoring & control; modelling & simulation.
- Instrumentation: Sensors, switches and controls as applied to fluid power: Temperature, flow, pressure, liquid level, position.
Within the context of Fluid Power, there is no better event for the industry than Fluid Power & Systems.
Talking Industry Live & The Knowledge Hub
The wide range of topical panel discussions of the popular Talking Industry webinar events will move temporarily from the digital sphere to live panel discussions at the NEC under the Talking Industry Live brand for three days during the forthcoming co-located shows in April 2022.
Talking Industry Live, as a CPD member, will include accredited panel discussions that will fully reflect the ongoing global transformation to the smart manufacturing era and provide fascinating panel discussions and insight into the potential plants of the future, covering all aspect of the digital transformation across the manufacturing spectrum, as well as looking at how digitalisation has helped during the Coronavirus pandemic and its importance in any future outbreak. Leading experts will address the vast array of information around 4IR, discussing the practicalities, technologies and issues surrounding transition and implementation of digitalisation in UK manufacturing.
In addition, as part of the Manufacturing Technology Centre’s (MTC) significant presence at the co-location of events, the organisation will lead the discussion on the changing manufacturing landscape, including the challenges and opportunities that will help provide practical steps, which manufacturers can take on the journey to embrace digitalisation in the post COVID-19 era. It will also take participate in a debate alongside BT on the topic of Industrial Networks, IIOT, 5G and Communications, as well a panel discussion with the MTC’s Chief Automation Officer, Mike Wilsonleading the discussion on Robotics and Advanced Automation. In addition, Charlotte Swain, Deputy Director for Delivery at the MTC’s Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre, will participate in the Bridging the Engineering Skills Gap for Factories of the Futurepanel discussion alongside Dr Susan Scurlock, Founder of Primary Engineers, and Wg Cdr Russ Barnes, Youth and STEM for the Royal Air Force.
Other Talking Industry Live panel discussions will focus on The Future of Additive Manufacturing– speakers include: Dr Alberto Bordi, ASTM International, Head of Additive Manufacturing Programmes – Europe, Prof Chris Tuck – Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange (Also Director of Added Scientific Ltd), University of Nottingham, and Simon Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Domin Fluid Power; Fluid Power and Factories of the Future, chaired by Paul Cooke, the Interim CEO at The British Fluid Power Association; The Hidden Menace: Strategies to avoid Cybercrime; Maintenance 4.0: The Future of Asset Managementincluding Dean Whittle, Senior Reliability Engineer, RMS Reliability, Phil Owen, Managing Director, SPM Instrument UK, Daniel Phillips-Fern, IXON UK & Ireland Country Managerand chaired by Prof John Ahmet Erkoyuncu, Cranfield University; Adapting to a Smart Erafeaturing Phil Lewis, Senior Vice President, Solution Consulting International (EMEA & APJ), infor, Steve Brambley Chief Executive, GAMBICAand Made Smarter.
While The Knowledge Hub will have a strong emphasis on technology that will bring together all aspects of plant and asset management, hydraulics, pneumatics, robotics and automation, energy efficiency, machine safety, drives, motion control, legislation, system strategies and technological developments. Featuring representatives from across industry including government agencies, research bodies, trade associations, and manufacturers.
The Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) for example will be discussing practical ways its members can help inspect, maintain, and manage the machinery and equipment which keeps manufacturers functioning.
While, Nikesh Mistry, sector head – Industrial Automation, GAMBICA, will be exploring why demand for automation technology is set to grow throughout the coming year, and how to retain a competitive advantage in the face of these new demands as well as overall automation trends in the UK.
Other seminars and case studies will include presentations from the MTC, CSA Catapult, Made Smarter, UKRI, BPMA, BFPA, BCAS, Pilz, infor, Sensata, SEAM Group, Copia Automation, Senseye, Primary Engineer, plus many others.
Over the course of the three-day co-located events, both Talking Industry Live and The Knowledge Hub seminar programmes, will offer visitors the opportunity to learn how they can seize the opportunities that exist and promote the benefits of adopting emerging digital technologies as well as a range of technical and practical case studies and seminars covering the wide range of topics areas of the co-location of events.
The impressive range of expert speakers include: Phil Lewis, Senior Vice President, Solution Consulting International (EMEA & APJ), Dean Whittle, Senior Reliability Engineer, RMS Reliability; Phil Owen, Managing Director, SPM Instrument UK; Daniel Phillips-Fern, IXON UK & Ireland Country Manager; Gary Wilde, Technical Services Manager, BPMA; Nikesh Mistry, Sector Head for Industrial Automation, GAMBICA; Adam Gluck, Founder & CEO, Copia Automation; Colin Duncan, CEO SEAM Group; Vanda Jones, Executive Director of The British Compressed Air; Andy Sellars, Strategic Development Director, CSA Catapult; Martin Barnes, Technical Engineer – Ambipar Response/ Society of Operation Engineers (SOE); Dr Alberto Bordi, ASTM International, Head of Additive Manufacturing Programmes – Europe; Prof Chris Tuck – Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange (Also Director of Added Scientific Ltd) University of Nottingham; Simon Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Domin Fluid Power; Paul Cooke, Interim CEO, The British Fluid Power Association (BFPA); Dr Susan Scurlock, Primary Engineers; Wg Cdr Russ Barnes, Youth and STEM, Royal Air Force; Prof John Ahmet Erkoyuncu, Cranfield University; Mike Wilson Manufacturing Technology Centre Chief Automation Officer (MTC); Steve Brambley Chief Executive, GAMBICA; and Asif Moghal, Market Development Manager, Autodesk, Charlotte Swain, Deputy Director for Delivery at the MTC’s Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre, plus many more.
The variety and scope of both the Talking Industry Live and Knowledge Hub programmes for 2022 are extremely exciting, adding real value and will give visitors a genuine opportunity to keep abreast of the latest industry developments.
For regular show updates, and the full Talking Industry Live and Knowledge Hub seminar programmes please visit: www.drives-expo.com.
