A highlight of this year's Motek was the integrative Arena of Integration theme park: 36 participating companies provided concrete answers to current questions about intelligent production and process chains in connection with digital applications with 29 networked use cases.

"The world's leading trade fair Motek in the heart of the SME sector is the right place at the right time for the Arena of Integration to present networked Industry 4.0 in a practical, hands-on way," said Senator E.h. Wolfgang Wolf, Managing Director of the Baden-Württemberg Industry Association (LVI). Trade fair organizer P. E. Schall, in cooperation with the Baden-Württemberg Mechatronics Network, is using the AoI to show where industrial manufacturing processes are heading: digitalization requires networking, holistic engineering and cooperative project implementation.

"Networking and acting together"
"The Arena of Integration is the best example of how German technology companies are world leaders when they network and work together. What we can experience at the Arena is not just a unique and innovative approach to trade fair design. It is also the key to how German medium-sized "hidden champions" can position themselves internationally in the future," explained Thomas Bonschab, Managing Director of TiNC International and designated board member of the German Society for International Technology Transfer (DGIT).

The AoI as part of Motek had already attracted a lot of attention in the run-up to the trade fair, with many personalities from politics and business making a note in their calendars to visit. A delegation from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs also took a personal look at the AoI on Thursday: "The arena is a profitable platform for networking between the players," she said approvingly during the tour. Several foreign delegations, including visitors from as far away as Brazil, also sought answers to questions about modern future manufacturing processes during their tour of the AoI. A group from Turkey with representatives from industry and training institutes had become aware of the theme park via the AoI website and had traveled to Motek especially for the event. They were interested in energy efficiency and saving resources in manufacturing.

The exhibitors at the Motek/Bondexpo trade fair duo had prepared many brand-new innovations for their trade visitors: from laboratory conveyor belts for LED-UV applications to new linear motor concepts, machine vision systems, gripper concepts and screwdriving technologies through to new cobots. All in all, trade visitors were given a comprehensive overview of the rapidly changing field of process automation.

Supporting program
With the Safety and Automation Forum, the Exhibitor Forum, the VDI Forum and the Arena of Communication (AoC) lecture program as an additional communication format of the AoI, Motek/Bondexpo created opportunities for visitors to gain the latest knowledge and expertise at first hand and to engage in a direct professional exchange with speakers and experts. Once again this year, the handling award ceremony at Motek provided the perfect setting to honor the award winners.

Motek/Bondexpo is traditionally a user-oriented "working trade fair". 35,165 trade visitors livened up the six halls over the four days of the trade fair. The trade fair concept will be continued in 2020: The next Motek/Bondexpo industry event, flanked by the AoI theme park, will take place from October 5 to 8, 2020. as