Xylexpo has continued to recover its bella figura since the recession with a stronger event on each occasion. This year, in addtion to the myraid machinery and equipment options on offer, software was the news of the moment.
A helathy roster of Italian and international brands gave visitors plenty to peruse, but many of the larger brand name manufacturers including Homag, SCM, Biesse and others made a major play on the software side of their business operation. Bid hallo to Tapio from Homag, bounjourno to Sophia at Biesse and wonder at the Maestro from SCM.
These and other software platforms are designed to take advantage of the IoT, the internet of things and the advent of Industry 4.0.The Internet of Things has become a reality thanks technological convergence.
Homag's impressive stand, replete with its new corporate id
IBM descibres it thus: “A ‘thing’ is any object with embedded electronics that can transfer data over a network — without any human interaction.”
So machinery in factories, and the tooling and materials being used can all be connected to deliver intelligence for operators, managers to monitor and adapt processes as required.
Another area which contributes to and uses to this information is the increased adoption of robotics, especially in high production environments.
Visitors will not have seen so much automation and so many advanced systems in a show before marking Xylexpo 2018 out watershed event in many ways.
The new Vega five-axis CNC machine from AES is available in the UK via J&C O'Meara
Indeed, in the show preamble, the organiser was promising plenty of technology for panels and solid wood processing among other things.
The exhibition attracted over 17,500 operators, up 2% on the previous edition. Of those, 5032 came from abroad. “With these figures we can say that Xylexpo has found its place in the more and more crowded and sometimes messy landscape of industry exhibitions,” comments Dario Corbetta, director of the exhibition. “We have made a clear choice, namely to be a stage for high technology, and this approach has increased the participation of an even more selected and qualified audience, with decision-making power and adequate expertise.”
By adding the fourth hall in this edition, the organiser had created a better, more easily navigable layout for visitors to find which of the 425 exhibitors they wishd to visit.
The dates of the next Xylexpo have have been confirmed as Monday 25th to Friday 29th May, 2020, changing the traditional Tuesday-to-Saturday timeframe.
