productronica 2009 provides clear indications of a trend change

11/11/2009

Back in spring it was anticipated that productronica 2009 would attract around 1,000 exhibitors. However, 1,150 companies will now actually present their products and innovations during the world’s leading trade fair for innovative electronics production at the New Munich Trade Fair Center from November 10 to 13, 2009. 1,126 exhibitors and 24 additionally represented firms from 30 countries are expected.

The economic crisis is also having a serious impact on productronica. The amount of exhibition space at the trade fair has dropped since 2007 and will now amount to a total of 75,000 square meters in seven exhibition halls. Due to understandable reasons, a large number of exhibitors will have smaller stands this year. Klaus Dittrich, CEO of Messe München: “The overwhelming majority of exhibitors have decided to take part in the trade fair in spite of the need to save money. We regard this as a clear declaration of belief in the importance of productronica for the industry.”

The organizers have been seeing a trend change since June. Companies which long delayed their decision to attend the trade fair or even cancelled their participation are now deciding to exhibit at productronica 2009. Ludger Grevenkamp, CEO of TSK Prüfsysteme GmbH, explains: “For many years, productronica has been a permanent fixture in our sales and marketing activities. However, the economic recession caused us to hesitate for a long time before we registered for the trade fair with binding effect. Ultimately, the decisive factor was the range of new and innovative products and solutions which we want to present to our customers and the market. We are hoping that the economic recovery will pick up even more momentum in 2010 and that numerous visitors will come to productronica to obtain information for their imminent investments.“

Frank van Erp, European Sales Director, Vitronics Soltec, adds: ”I found that exhibitions are more and more a medium for companies to visit several suppliers in a short time to have road map discussions and to talk about future plans. In parallel to this we expect to see the first slow start of recovery where the November time frame looks to be timed well, we have had a lot of feedback from customers which indicate there will be enough traffic. Last but not least I wanted the investment to be economically justified, reason for us to be a little less dominant in our presence. We will show our high end equipment on reflow and selective with a focus on process control. productronica will also be our European introduction of our new 6746 selective machine aimed for medium/high volume/high mix environment.”

Participation in productronica with a small budget

Two offers for productronica are aimed at young enterprises or companies whose trade fair budget is limited. In order to give them the opportunity to present their products and services on the world market, Messe München created an “Innovation Field“ Package which enables them to use the advantages of the trade fair at a reasonable price. The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology is also following this principle with its promotion in the form of the joint “Made in Germany” stand. 35 exhibitors are making use of these promotional offers.

Complete range of electronics production

There will be around 750 exhibitors this year in the core areas of productronica, i.e. PCBs and other circuit carrier manufacturing, technologies in cable processing, component mount technology, soldering technology and test and measurement systems. Practically every market leader from the individual segments will be present at productronica 2009.

Rapidly growing products and technologies, which stand for progress and the future, will be presented together in the focus areas and will be represented by their own exhibition areas: micronano technologies, photovoltaics manufacturing, electronic manufacturing services (EMS) and hybrid component manufacturing.

The cross-segment trend technologies of advanced packaging, green electronics manufacturing, automation solutions and efficiency improving solutions will be presented by exhibitors in every exhibition area of productronica.

Innovative supporting program

In the munich electronics summit, Messe München has created an event for top executives in internationally operating companies. This event will be held for the first time on November 10, 2009. The guest of honor is Ram Charan, one of the world’s leading management and business consultants. The focal point of the munich electronics summit will be an exclusive fireside discussion in which the business leaders will meet in a private atmosphere to talk about strategies, ideas, future-oriented trends and general political conditions within the electronics industry.

The previous Executive Round Table will be continued from this year onwards as the CEO Round Table and is now the publicly accessible part of the munich electronics summit. It will take place from 14.00 to 15.30 on November 10, 2009 in the productronica Forum in Hall A1.
The productronica University will form part of the productronica Forum and the Innovation Forum sessions on market and technology topics in electronics production, e.g. micronano production, photovoltaic manufacturing, traceability, technology roadmapping or organic electronics. The productronica University will be staged on every day of the trade fair and can be called up in the timetable on the productronica website.

New online registration with a print@home ticket

Messe München is introducing a new visitor admission system just in time before the start of productronica. It will allow visitors to conveniently print out their tickets at home or at work, thus enabling them to gain direct admission to the trade fair.

If visitors want to redeem their guest ticket or purchase an admission ticket, they can produce their personalized ticket under Online ticket registration for productronica 2009. Online registration only takes a few minutes. Visitors will then obtain their print@home ticket which they can print out as their admission ticket. There is no longer any need to exchange the ticket at the trade fair cash desks.