Visitors to the trade fair benefit from the range of national and international automation and digitalization providers and can still get a complete overview of the market within one day. The trade fair organizer Mesago recorded 71 percent one-day visitors to the automation trade fair. Seven percent of visitors make use of all three days of the trade fair for their technology research. The proportion of international visitors last year was 27.6 percent (18,154 visitors). 47,546 visitors to the previous year's event came from Germany.

Focus on digital transformation
Digitalization is having a huge impact on the automation industry. Numerous exhibitors will therefore be showcasing their solutions as well as various products and application examples relating to digital transformation. IT providers are also increasingly represented at SPS. The charm here is: IT topics are presented in a very strong and focused way in conjunction with automation specialists. Presentations of topics such as big data, cloud technology, 5G and artificial intelligence often take place in a practical manner in joint activities and demos together with automation providers. Thematic special display areas and presentations at the trade fair forums do the rest to illustrate the digital transformation in the manufacturing industry.

As part of this year's Guided Tours, visitors from Germany and abroad will once again be given the opportunity to visit innovative exhibitors on individual topics in guided tours. This will give participants a compact overview of the topics of machine learning and AI, product and machine simulation, industrial security in manufacturing, cloud ecosystems and predictive maintenance. The focus of the tours is on real use cases.

The Automation Hackathon, which was held for the first time last year, was very well received. Useful and creative software solutions for the automation industry are programmed here in a competitive environment. Due to the intensive planning preparations, the next Automation Hackathon will take place in 2020.

The forums of the VDMA association in Hall 5 and the ZVEI association in Hall 6 as well as the trade fair forums in Halls 3 and 10.1 offer specialist presentations and panel discussions. Here, visitors can find out about current industry topics and engage in personal dialog with experts.

Congress accompanying the trade fair

For all those who want even more in-depth information on current topics in automation, the SPS accompanying congress organized by WEKA Fachmedien is the right place to be. In 4-hour sessions this year, the topics "5G, TSN and OPC UA in industry", "Securely connected - from the sensor to the cloud", "IOT platforms - best practices" and "Flexible automation for little money - what can robotics do?" will be examined from a practical perspective.

SPS IPC Drives became SPS
Since the beginning of 2019, SPS IPC Drives has had a new name: SPS - Smart Production Solutions. The name of the trade fair has changed, but the concept and content orientation remain the same and will be continued. The organizer Mesago Messe Frankfurt is thus taking account of the digital transformation of the industry and promises continued relevance, expertise and an exchange at eye level. as