6,505 visitors and 378 exhibitors in Stuttgart / The trade fair is characterized by high-quality discussions
Two fully occupied exhibition halls, two top-class lecture forums: The 30th edition of VISION created an excellent atmosphere in the Alfred Kärcher Hall (Hall 8) and the Paul Horn Hall (Hall 10).
Visitor and exhibitor numbers back on course for growth
VISION 2022 recorded a total of 6,505 trade visitors. This means that the world’s leading trade fair has once again become the center of the image processing industry.
“VISION 2022 was a complete success and far exceeded our expectations – both on the visitor and on the exhibitor side. It is also nice to see that the event was again able to record a higher international participation after the pandemic-related restrictions of the previous year. In this way, VISION is developing again in the direction of familiar structures, even in the context of changed information procurement,” says Roland Bleinroth, Managing Director of Messe Stuttgart.
In total, visitors from around 60 countries were registered. Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Spain and Great Britain were the most strongly represented. VISION was once again able to welcome a large specialist audience from South Korea, Japan and the USA.
In addition to the classic user sectors such as electrical engineering/electronics, mechanical and plant engineering as well as the automotive and automotive supplier industry, there was also a significant proportion of visitors from non-industrial sectors – including medical technology and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, aerospace and transport and logistics . Accordingly, the interest in non-industrial applications has increased compared to the previous year. Turnkey image processing systems were also able to register increased visitor interest.
The quality of the visitors was still high: 55 percent stated that they were involved in purchasing and procurement decisions in the company in a decisive or co-decisive manner. 27 percent came to the fair with definite investment or purchase intentions.
The demand for image processing components and systems developed more strongly than expected in 2021. Sales in the German image processing industry rose by 16 percent to 3.1 billion euros. The European image processing industry was also able to record growth of 17 percent. As the conceptual sponsor of VISION, the VDMA Machine Vision confirmed the positive mood in the industry at the opening of the trade fair: “The further growth prospects are positive despite the general economic uncertainty. The VDMA Machine Vision department expects growth of eight percent for the German and European image processing industry in 2022,” says Mark Williamson, Chairman of the Board of VDMA Machine Vision. “The image processing industry continues to conquer new fields of application, increasingly also in the non-industrial sector”. The positive developments in the image processing industry are also reflected in the number of exhibiting companies at VISION.
A total of 378 exhibiting companies – 60 percent of them came from abroad – presented the wide spectrum of image processing over three days. In addition to numerous first-time participants, the key players in the industry were there. for dr Dietmar Ley, CEO of Basler AG, VISION is the most important computer vision marketplace in Europe: “For us, VISION is the central platform for presenting innovations and communicating our repositioning towards solution providers. This year, too, many visitors approached us with concrete new projects. Initiatives such as the VISION Guided Tours for Food & Beverages, Intra-Logistics, Medical & Pharma created new incentives for visitors from applications outside of factory automation. “We have seen a further development in the area of ’Artificial Intelligence’. In this context, Industry 4.0 with cloud architecture and AI-based image processing on edge devices will continue to establish itself. 3D technology will also continue to mature and become more cost-effective.”
Jan Hartmann, IDS Managing Director, also emphasizes the importance of VISION as the industry’s leading technological trade fair: “Image processing is a central technology for automation technology, especially in connection with 3D vision and artificial intelligence. At VISION, visitors learned how we facilitate access to these key technologies and help to initiate and optimize automation processes with easy-to-use components.”
Beckhoff Automation was an exhibiting company at VISION for the first time. Bernd Stöber, Senior Product Manager Vision, was consistently satisfied: “Our goal was to present the new hardware products and thus an integrated, controller-synchronized complete solution to the vision-tech industry for the first time in addition to our previous vision software solution. What event would be better suited for this than VISION. With our expanded portfolio, we were able to make a large number of high-quality contacts. After the intensive talks at VISION, visitors perceive Beckhoff as a full-service provider for vision solutions. It is therefore certain for us that we will be there again as an exhibitor in 2024.”
VISION Award 2022 goes to Kitov.ai
Kitov.ai was there for the first time. At its premiere, the Israeli company won the VISION Award 2022 for its CAD2SCAN software, which significantly simplifies the construction of robotic inspection systems through the use of CAD-based automated inspection planning. “Winning the VISION Award 2022 allows us to continue developing this technology and optimizing AI. This makes it easier for manufacturers to introduce automated visual inspection. We are infinitely grateful that we had the opportunity to address a broader specialist audience. There is no greater appreciation for our work. I highly recommend any company to submit their machine vision and AI innovations for the VISION Awards,” said Corey Merchant, Vice President Americas at Kitov.ai.
VISION Start-up World on course for growth
The innovative strength of the industry is also reflected in the VISION Start-up World, where a total of 20 young companies were able to present themselves. As part of the daily start-up pitch sessions, one start-up of the day was chosen, from which Visometry from Darmstadt emerged as the VISION start-up 2022 on the last day of the fair. The company convinced the jury with its “digital twin” approach to detecting and tracking components based on their 3D CAD data. This enables quality engineers to carry out a target/actual analysis in order to identify production errors as early as possible in the assembly process.
For those who could not be there in person, VISION offered a live stream and videos on demand of the entire Industrial VISION Days lecture program. The viewers of the live stream came from a total of 18 countries. This showed once again the international importance of VISION.
Standards as the basis for growth
Globally uniform standards are the basis for the acceptance of image processing technology in a wide variety of user industries. This is also emphasized by the European image processing association EMVA. “As the leading European industry association, we again managed the ‘International Vision Standards’ stand in order to bring the standards required for the further growth of the vision industry closer to the trade visitors of VISION. The VISION is still the most important image processing trade fair worldwide. The many new companies and technologies at the fair have impressively confirmed this and underpin the performance potential and the high level of vitality in the industry. We are entering a new macroeconomic environment and are confident that machine vision is well positioned to continue creating long-term value for our users,” summarizes Dr. Chris Yates, EMVA President, together.
An assessment that Dr. Dietmar Ley, CEO of Basler AG, basically agrees: “The industry is currently exposed to strong market dynamics. Past experience shows that falls in demand have generally not lasted longer than 18 months. We assume that the market will recover again in 2024 and that the situation on the material markets for electronic components will improve over the course of 2023.”
The next VISION will take place on October 8th to 10th, 2024.