Every two years, Smart Automation Austria transforms the Design Center Linz into Austria's high-tech center for three days. From May 14 to 16, a total of 180 key players and new exhibitors presented innovations and trends in industrial automation technology as well as their production and application areas to 7,422 trade visitors (up 119 trade visitors compared to Smart 2017) from industry and the manufacturing sector.

Although it was declared to be the leading trade fair for the industry in Germany, this time 7.2 percent of visitors came from neighboring countries, primarily from Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic. As the Design Center was once again fully booked to the last square meter due to the high demand from exhibitors, a lightweight hall with an additional 500 square meters of exhibition space was set up on the forecourt.

Dietmar Eiden, Managing Director responsible for B2B trade fairs at organizer Reed Exhibitions, is not the only one to consider Smart Automation a success: "The extremely positive mood at the trade fair was clearly noticeable among many of the exhibitors we spoke to. In addition to the good quality of discussions with trade visitors, exhibitors also appreciated the high number of new business contacts. Overall, Smart 2019 is a strong signal for Austria as an industrial and business location, including in terms of the economy."

In the visitor survey, nine out of ten trade visitors were very satisfied with the trade fair overall, and just as many rated the trade fair offering as complete. In terms of economic sectors, mechanical and plant engineering (26.9 percent) and electrical engineering (25.8 percent) accounted for the largest contingents of visitors, followed by metal processing, the automotive and supplier industry, the chemical industry, technical offices, the plastics industry, the food and beverage industry, the pharmaceutical and medical industry, the cardboard and paper industry and the textile industry.

As expected, the question about the main areas of interest (multiple answers) revealed a wide range of topics. Drive technology and control technology/PLC topped the list with 45.8 percent each, followed by sensor technology and industrial image processing, measurement and control technology (38.6 percent), automated handling (35.2 percent), engineering for automation (29,2 percent), industrial electronics (24.2 percent), pneumatics for automation (23.9 percent), bus systems and industrial communication (22 percent), process control technology (21.6 percent), operation and monitoring/visualization technology (21.2 percent), IT security (14.8 percent), big data & cloud computing (14 percent), and cloud computing (14 percent), industrial software (13.6 percent), services (9.8 percent), embedded systems/CPS (9.1 percent) and infrastructure/data networks/energy (4.9 percent).

Three quarters of respondents consider digitalization to be very important for the success of their companies in the future. As a result, seven out of ten respondents rate the presentation of digitalization processes at a trade fair as very useful.

Economic assessment in the green zone
In the survey, just over four out of five respondents were very satisfied with the current economic situation in their sectors. As far as developments over the next twelve months are concerned, optimism is still evident: 60.6% of respondents even expect a significant improvement in economic development.

Next year at Messe Wien
In 2020, Smart Automation Austria will return to Messe Wien as scheduled. It will coincide with Intertool, the international trade fair for industrial production technology, and C4I - Connectivity for Industry, the platform for the digitalization of the industrial value chain. While Smart and C4I will run from May 12 to 14, 2020, Intertool will close one day later, on May 15, as usual. as