However, digitalization is not the only challenge that companies face on an almost daily basis. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the industry's ability to adapt means that forecasts for the sector continue to rise. Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, Executive Director of the VDW German Machine Tool Builders' Association, expects production volumes to increase by 7% to over EUR 17 billion, as in 2017. This development is also having a positive effect on employment, which stood at around 72,400 employees (+3.4 percent) at the end of last year. Capacities are almost fully utilized. Dr. Schäfer cites the good economic situation as one of the reasons: "The global economy continues to grow strongly. According to experts, gross domestic product is set to rise even more strongly in 2018 than in the previous year. Industrial production is an important driver. This is also having an impact on international machine tool consumption, which is set to increase by 5.9% in 2018."

An industry and its trends

Digitization, networking and Industry 4.0 will also be a topic at almost every trade fair stand. The VDW is also driving the topic forward with its industry initiative "Industry 4.0". The aim is to develop a standard and implement it in software in order to be able to connect a wide variety of machine control systems to higher-level IT systems using a common interface. Renowned machine tool manufacturers, all exhibitors at AMB, have come together for the initiative and overcome their competitive thinking.

One of them is the Heller Group. Klaus Winkler, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, explains his company's reasons for the cooperation: "Conventional potential for increasing productivity is considered to be almost exhausted. In 'Industry 4.0', we see an approach to making the condition of machine tools transparent at all times and evaluating the information obtained with existing data for targeted diagnostics."

All major control system manufacturers are now also on board - which ensures widespread use. This benefits small and medium-sized companies in particular, paving their way into the digital future. At AMB, the VDW will be presenting initial implementations for data exchange on machine tools on its own stand as part of the Digital Way special show and the associated congress. All VDW members will be brought up to date at an information event.

New trends, new markets

There is also a trend in classic workpiece machining, namely towards complete machining. For Professor Berend Denkena, Head of the Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW) at the University of Hanover and current President of the Scientific Society for Production Engineering (WGP), there is an emerging trend towards complete machining. "If possible, components should be finished in one machine and from six sides."
According to Prof. Denkena, grinding technologies, for example, are increasingly finding their way into traditional turning and milling machines in order to be able to produce certain qualities at all. This is also leading to the increased use of zero-point clamping systems if a machine change cannot be avoided.

Additive processes are increasingly being integrated into conventional machine tools as an additional tool in order to be able to apply and remove material in a single clamping operation. As automation progresses, robots are taking over simple processing steps such as deburring in addition to their main handling tasks. All these technologies can come together in the control system, which increasingly speaks all the necessary languages.

Or machine tool manufacturer Starrag: it is already using the extended possibilities of the latest generation of robots. They are not only increasingly being used for automation purposes, but also "to carry out auxiliary tasks in our projects", as Managing Director Dr. Marcus Otto explains. Otto continues: "As the robots' field of activity is becoming ever larger, we can streamline machining in individual cases and offer our customers the necessary efficiency gains by running auxiliary processes in parallel." Other tasks for robots could include a wide range of reworking, cleaning and testing workpieces.

The electrification of the drivetrain initially led to real horror scenarios for the machining industry. Compared to gasoline engines, electric motors consisted of only a few, comparatively simple parts. On closer inspection, the situation has eased. Apart from the fact that experts expect petrol engines to be used for decades to come, the hybridization of many vehicles, i.e. equipping them with two types of drive, actually requires more machined parts. And in the case of purely electric vehicles, the decreasing noise level means that the remaining parts have to be machined all the more precisely to avoid being unpleasantly conspicuous. As a result, the machine tools have to be able to produce even tighter tolerances. A clear victory for manufacturers of high-tech machines. Mapal Managing Director Dr. Jochen Kress also confirmed this in an interview with SCOPE.