EVENT PREVIEW
Manufacturing extravaganza set to return to NEC in April 2020 The biennial co-located events – Drives & Controls, Smart Industry Expo, Fluid Power & Systems, Plant & Asset Management, and Air-Tech Exhibitions – are once again set to return to Birmingham’s NEC 21 - 23 April 2020, alongside MACH 2020. rives & Controls Exhibition 2020 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 2020 is an essential source of technological and engineering information and is fully supported by GAMBICA and EPTDA. Returning exhibitors include Beckhoff, B&R, 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. GAMBICA and the European Transmission Distributors Association will again be hosting pavilions where members will be promoting their activities.
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Smart Industry Expo 2020 To complement the 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 se-
28 Electrical Review | March 2020
curity, 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. MTC 2020 New for 2020 is the significant announcement that the Manufacturing Technologies Centre (MTC) has confirmed a 100sqm 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 and 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. Air-Tech 2020 Running alongside Drives & Controls Exhibition and Smart Industry Expo, will also be Air-Tech 2020, which is set to highlight current key themes connected 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.
