Drives & Controls March 2022

41 www.drivesncontrols.com March 2022 SHOW PREVIEW n It’s the final countdown W e are now just a month away from the first Drives & Controls Show in four years. Excitement is building with many people looking forward to their first face-to-face exhibition meetings since the start of the pandemic. The total number of exhibitors at Drives & Controls and its cluster of co-located events – Smart Industry Expo, Air-Tech, Fluid Power & Systems and Plant & Asset Management – seems likely to exceed the figure for the last event in 2018. “Following the formidable challenges we have all had to face over the past two years, we are more than ever looking forward to staging what promises to be our biggest co- located event yet, with more exhibitors and more extensive floor space than ever before,” says Ryan Fuller, managing director of the show organiser and publisher of Drives & Controls magazine, DFA Manufacturing Media. “We are also delighted to launch our brand-new Digitalisation and Engineering Forums at this year’s shows. “The industry niches these exhibitions represent are rapidly evolving technologically, and this event will provide visitors with the ideal opportunity to learn more about these recent developments and how they could potentially prove to be of major value and benefit to their businesses,” Fuller adds. “We very much look forward to welcoming both our exhibitors and visitors to the industry’s main event this April.” As well as examining and discussing a vast range of industrial technologies and services, visitors to the Drives & Controls and the other shows will be able to attend a series of stimulating seminars and panel discussions including, for the first time, a series of forums that have grown out of the Talking Industry online Webinars that DFA Media launched during the dark days of lockdown. On all three days of the show, the Talking Industry panel discussions will move temporarily from their digital environment to live panel discussions under the Talking Industry Live banner. In addition, as part of the Manufacturing Technology Centre’s significant presence at the NEC, experts from the Centre will lead a discussion on the how the manufacturing landscape is changing, and will examine the challenges and opportunities facing manufacturers as they embrace digitalisation in the post-Covid-109 era. Topics to be discussed during the Talking Industry Live sessions include: n Maintenance 4.0: the future of asset management n Bridging the engineering skills gap for factories of the future n Strategies to avoid cybercrime n Adapting to the smart era n Fluid power and factories of the future n Industrial networks, IIoT and communications n The future of additive manufacturing As well as Talking Industry Live, there will be two other free-to-attend forums running in theatres on the exhibition floor during the three days of the show, focusing on digitalisation and engineering. The Digitalisation Forum , sponsored by Pilz, will reflect the global transformation to smart manufacturing and provide an insight into plants of the future, covering all aspects of the digital transformation across the manufacturing spectrum. Leading experts will address the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and discuss the practicalities, technologies and issues surrounding transition and implementation of digitalisation in UK manufacturing. The Engineering Forum , with a strong emphasis on technology, will bring together industrial automation, robotics, plant and asset management, energy efficiency, machine safety, drives, motion control, hydraulics and pneumatics technologies, and well as examining legislation and system strategies. The speakers will be drawn from across industry including government agencies, research bodies, trade associations and manufacturers. As the event gets nearer, exhibitors have been snapping up the last few available stands. For example, Trio Motion After a lengthy Covid-enforced delay, the Drives & Controls Show returns the Birmingham NEC next month for the first time in four years. We report on what visitors can expect to see and experience at the first major national event for the manufacturing sector since the pandemic.