VISION 2010 attracts record participation, visitors seek to purchase machine vision products

VISION 2010 (November 9-11; Stuttgart, Germany) exceeded its previous record result from 2008 in all areas, with approximately 6,800 visitors from over 50 countries. The visitors were predominantly from Europe but also from overseas, mainly from the USA and South Korea. In 2008 there were 6,200 visitors and last year only 5,700 due to the economic crisis.

With 323 exhibitors VISION managed for the first time to cross the 300 mark; 44 percent of the exhibitors came from abroad--a record. In 2009, 297 exhibitors took part. The international character of visitors has risen slightly, which, according to initial projections, is approximately 35 percent. According to 84 percent of those surveyed, they came with concrete intentions to invest and purchase. A quarter of the visitors were end customers or end users, almost 20 percent were OEM customers of mechanical engineering and plant construction.

“Many users are looking for complete solutions and discussed feasibility and integration with us. This figure was not so high in the past. The international character of the visitors also clearly increased. We achieved the objective with respect to desired customer contacts and are expecting good post trade fair business,” commented Roman Vracko, Product Marketing Manager Sensor/Vision from Omron in Nufringen, on the survey result.

“All in all we are satisfied with VISION 2010. We felt a huge willingness to invest, both in our core buying industries, mechanical engineering, electrical, and automotive industry, as well as in application fields,” stated Dr. Olav Munkelt, Chairman of the VDMA Machine Vision, and Managing Director of MVTec Software in Munich.

In the non-industrial machine vision, mainly the areas of security technology and also transport, medicine, and sport are emerging markets. The ball contact evaluation in football and the golf swing analysis are examples. Car systems that can detect a dangerous momentary nodding off and trigger an immediate warning to the driver are also interesting for the end user, as are thermal imaging cameras, which can see considerably further at night than any high beam.

The visitors came from diverse manufacturing industries, such as mechanical engineering, electronics, precision engineering, and optics, medical technology, and the automotive industry, as well as their supplier industries. Every second person came from development, every third from research and the others were business or corporate management.

“The concept of VISION, to increasingly address the end user, has succeeded," states Thomas Walter, manager of the competence area Industry & Technology at Messe Stuttgart, the trade fair organizer. Special shows such as the VISION Application Park and the Integration Area were a major contributor in this regard. Using the example of Playmobil figures, the VISION Application Park demonstrated how machine vision systems, combined with handling, automation, packaging, and labelling technology applications, interact for the purpose of quality assurance. The Integration Area clearly showed what factors play a role in the inclusion of machine vision systems in an application. Walter adds, "The visitors appeared very satisfied with the products and services offered at VISION. 92 percent are planning to come back again to VISION 2011."

VISION 2011 will take place again from 8-10 November 2011 at the new Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre.

SOURCE: Messe Stuttgart

Posted by Vision Systems Design