Perhaps more than any other technology at IMTS, AM represents the opportunity for small and start-up companies, from the U.S. and abroad, to gain exposure to a large audience and grow their dreams.
Austin Kron, Business Development Manager for first-time exhibitor BeAM Machines Inc., Strasbourg, France, believes AM will continue to generate company creation and growth as it becomes more industrialized, meeting production levels required by manufacturing. He cites one customer with certified aerospace repair job that has more than three thousand parts in flight.
“Every building in McCormick Place featured AM technology,” says Eelman. “Four years ago when we produced the Strati vehicle on the show floor, large-scale AM was a novelty. At IMTS 2018, AM technology was part of the manufacturing processes used to produce the entrance hall impact units.”
Smarter Solutions
ATHENA, the industry's first voice-operated assistant, debuted at IMTS in the Makino and OKK booths, as well as in AMT's ETC where visitors could control a 5-axis DMG Mori CNC.
“With 5-axis milling technology becoming more prevalent, operators need to know more to be highly productive,” says Dan Bagley, VP Marketing & Sales at iTSpeeX. “People don't operate machines. People produce parts in a cell, and the machine is an actor in that cell. ATHENA provides intelligent assistance to machinists to allow them to operate multiple types of controls.”
Index previewed its iXworld, an online portal with four distinct service areas under a single interface. FANUC's FIELD system, an open platform that collects machine data in real time, was connected to more than 300 machines from 144 companies at the show. SAP focused on how to use blockchain to improve trust and transparency from source to consumption. After meeting at the previous show, Infor and FORCAM collaborated to create a bi-direction interface between FORCAM'S plant floor information-gathering solution and Infor's back-end ERP solution. Fraunhofer demonstrated the first 5G network in the world, which can record data at frequencies 10 to 100 times faster than LTE.
“Not automating is our biggest competitor,” notes Robby Komljenovic, CEO and Chairman of Acieta. He says that automating is easier than companies think, adding that, “You need to exploit technology” to remain competitive.
Smartforce Student Summit
The IMTS 2018 Smartforce Student Summit broke its previous record with 24,469 registrants, 7,000 more than IMTS 2016 event.
“The national conversation around STEM education has had a positive influence on our ability to attract more schools to the Student Summit,” said Greg Jones Vice President of Smartforce Development for AMT.
The 2018 Student Summit gave students the opportunity to experience 25 different job functions available in manufacturing (view career pathways at amtonline.org).
“Students engage with the people who are in those manufacturing jobs right now, as well as see the technology and equipment they would use on the job. Technology is making manufacturing careers cool again,” says Jones.
High school junior Kaitlyn Ludlam addressed the Student Summit as one of Top 24 Under 24 Leaders and Innovators in STEAM and Space, an annual awards program presented by The Mars Generation®.
“I've been doing a lot more with STEAM, reaching out to other kids who are being told they can't do things, especially young women” says Ludlam. “I want to help them understand that they can do these things and not to listen to people who discourage them.”
The Miles for Manufacturing 5K fun run and fundraising event on Wednesday, Sept. 12, drew a record 486 runners. The 5K run generated almost $28,000 in proceeds, which will be used to acquire a STEM kit called Bionics4Education from Pesto-Didactic and donated to 14 STEM middle schools in the Chicago area.
Technical Conferences
In total, more than 2,500 visitors attended conference sessions during the week of IMTS. The largest event, in terms of both content and visitors, was The IMTS Conference.
Presented by AMT and managed by GIE Media, The IMTS Conference attracted more than 850 people and featured 71 different sessions, each selected by a review board. Collectively, The IMTS Conference and the co-located events provided IMTS visitors with more than 142 hours of educational programming.
“The two most popular themes from the conference sessions were additive manufacturing and connected/digital manufacturing,” says Bill Herman, Director, International Exhibitions and Sponsorship, AMT. Many conference attendees were looking for ways to begin their “digital journey” within their shops or how to implement next steps, as well as how they might harness additive manufacturing into their processes.
“The Additive Manufacturing Conference was a tremendous success and our largest event to date with more than 575 attendees,” adds Travis Egan, Publisher, Additive Manufacturing magazine. “This included both current and future adopters of AM technology looking to deepen their knowledge base and learn more about the latest technologies in order to grow their manufacturing businesses.”
Based on feedback from the job shop and contractor community, IMTS created a program to address the challenges they face to help diminish their daily struggles.
“Our new Job Shops program attracted 405 participants,” Michelle Edmonson, Senior Director – Exhibitions Operations & Marketing, AMT. “With such strong interest at this show, we plan to continue our focus on jobs shop at IMTS 2020.”
Presentations included a seminar on the unending search for qualified labor hosted by four job shop owners. “The part of the discussion on reaching out to high school-level and community college students was good. I hadn't thought about going to those sources to find kids interested in manufacturing,” says Aaron Collier, General Manager of Liberty Bottleworks in Yakima, Washington.
EOS' “Applied AM – Where Additive Minds Meet” half-day symposium drew more than 300 people. In a sign of how far AM has progressed, topics included a session on AM digital supply chain readiness.
Seeking New Approaches
Visitors walked the floor of IMTS focusing on technologies, ideas, business practices and face-to-face conversations that advance manufacturing.
“What I get at the show is the ability to meet people,” says Matt Guse, President of MRS Machining, who has attended IMTS since 1996. “You meet people just sitting around and talking. You share ideas, or they tell you what they've seen. Sometimes you think you've seen the whole show, and the next thing you know, someone tells you about something new in the next hall and you see how awesome it is. That's why I always say IMTS is the Super Bowl of manufacturing.”
“We had very astute attendees coming to IMTS 2018,” says Eelman. “They are more educated about the health of their business and know that connectivity, digitization, automation and knowledge are part of the solution.
“IMTS takes all this, puts it under one roof and fosters connections. By the time we reach IMTS 2020, what visitors learned this week will have already changed their operations. People will come to renew old friendships and uncover new possibilities that expand their horizons.”
