MACH’s new decade
This year’s edition of MACH, the UK’s largest manufacturing technology event and held biennially, sees
in a new decade characterised by connectivity and data. As our cover feature suggests, the coming years
herald a time of great technological change for industry and society. MACH will refl ect some of that
It is easy for commentators to get dazzled
by the latest technological advances and
start striding off down that road to the
future, which does, of course, always hold
more promise than the present. But new
technological advances always take time to
permeate through industry at large. At the
end of the 1980s, for example, after more
than 30 years’ development and application
of numerical control (NC) and then computer
numerical control (CNC), a survey of the day
stated that of the UK’s 750,000 machine
tools, just 8% were CNC. So it is today
with Industry 4.0 and arti cial intelligence;
certainly available and much talked about,
but less practiced and applied in wider
industry. (The phrase Industry 4.0 was
coined in Germany in 2011, incidentally.)
Visitors to MACH shows, as their
organiser the Manufacturing Technologies
Association (MTA) reveals, come mostly
looking for new products – 64% of them. And
since most of the products are hardware,
it is, visually at least, a hardware show in
the main. As James Fudge, head of events
and members’ services, said at a MACH
2020 launch press conference: “MACH
still retains its USP as being one of the
only shows that people turn up to with
equipment, switch it on and show it running,
demonstrating.” That said, he added that
there are more digital solutions at this
year’s event. There is no Industry 4.0 area
itself, he advised, because the technology
will be present throughout the exhibition,
alongside or part of many of those central
hardware exhibits.
And that is rather the point with Industry
4.0 in the engineering manufacturing sector.
Manufacturing technology developers
are enhancing their hardware. This sees
equipment connected, data extracted and
variously processed locally or in the cloud
to make it run more effectively and drive up
quality. Industry 4.0 is also the umbrella
under which arti cial intelligence (AI) is
being added to production technology.
Furthermore, digital representations (twins)
of the working envelope deliver safer
programs and manufacturing cycles.
There is a Digital Solutions for
Manufacturing zone, typically software
providers taking in CADCAM and production
control, and these will similarly have
enhanced their offerings with, for example,
AI. Siemens is resident in that zone and will
probably have the broadest digital message.
Details of both physical and digital
technologies on show at MACH have not
yet started to arrive in Machinery’s of ce,
but since MACH 2020 follows Europe’s
EMO show held last year, a rereading of
the EMO review (https://is.gd/ahunez) might
prove illuminating. Our next few issues, and
our website, will put more esh on MACH
2020’s bones, of course.
But what about the show, its location and
various elements? Already before the New
Year, 95% of available space had been sold,
the MTA reported at the end of November.
This year represents the second MACH in
the new location. Still at Birmingham’s NEC,
it is now housed in several connected halls,
all on one level (Halls 6, 7, 17, 18, 19 and
20), having moved in 2018 from its longtime
home of Halls 4 and 5.
Signposting was an issue at the rst
outing in the new location, so the MTA has
created way nding logos to help visitors
better understand their location, as regards
zones, of which there are 10: 3D Printing
& Additive Manufacturing (AM); Automation
for Manufacturing; Digital Solutions for
Manufacturing; Grinding and Abrasives;
Lasers for Manufacturing; Logistics
for Manufacturing; Measurement and
Inspection; Surface Finishing; UK Supply
Chain; and Welding.
Another zone, but this time not a
technology area, is the Education &
Development (E&D) zone (Hall 17). Again
this year sponsored by Sandvik Coromant,
some 15% of the 25,000+ visitors to
MACH are students. Within this area,
where stands will identi ed by a logo too,
will be the Shef eld University’s Advanced
Manufacturing Research Centre’s MANTRA
(Manufacturing Technology Transporter).
This is a specially customised 14 m HGV
trailer packed with the latest machinery and
simulators, designed to give aspiring young
Social exhibition – #MACH2020
The MTA is encouraging people to start now, Tweeting, using Facebook and Instagram,
talking about the show, letting others know they are going. So, as part of the registration
process (live now www.machexhibition.com), at the end of it people are asked if they want to
connect to their social media pro les.
Similarly, on the MACH website itself, there’s a new ‘engage’ module. So, if there are
speci c exhibitors that visitors want to see, they can set up meetings with them before the
event. The same badge technologies as were used in 2018 will be employed, with contact
details read from these. You can link with the MTA via: www.facebook.com/MTAEandD,
www.linkedin.com/company/the-manufacturing-technologies-association and
twitter.com/mta_uk.
14 January 2020 www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets
/the-manufacturing-technologies-association
/MTAEandD
/mta_uk
/www.machinery.co.uk
link
/ahunez