Klaus Dittrich, managing director of the Munich show organization, has reason to be proud, if not relieved, about the continuing success and growing stature of Productronica. All of this in the midst of gut-wrenching structural changes and tectonic shifts in the global manufacturing landscape. Productronica, in its 15th incarnation since it was spun out of Electronica in 1976, in his words is “the world’s leading trade fair for electronics manufacturing”.
Nevertheless and despite the upbeat rhetoric, the numbers are down if ever so slightly this year: a total of 1623 exhibitors are expected. Last time, in 2001, there were 1812. The majority of them (981) are of German origin. Of the foreign exhibitors, the largest contingents come from Britain (97) and the U.S. (88), followed by Switzerland (81) and Italy (68) – a good reflection of the distribution of electronics high-tech manufacturing base over Europe. Moreover, not to be overlooked: the number of American exhibitors has dropped remarkably from the rest, by a huge 26 %. A trend that the event maker cannot neglect.
In terms of floor space, Productronica is shrinking a bit too: by just under 10 % to 120,000 sq.meter, leaving five of the 11 halls of the giant trade fair center unoccupied. About 40,000 attendees should come – “high-quality visitors” as Dittrich addresses them – always a welcome euphemism when times are bad. According to him, “Companies are sending less attendees.” A good third of them will come from abroad (46 countries). Again reflecting Europe’s current manufacturing base, the event is heavily geared to guests from industrial electronics, automotive and consumer communications industries, with PCB fabrication taking a good fourth rank.
Under the dictate of global industry trends – outsourcing and consolidation, migration of production, transition to other technologies, concentration on core competences and evolution from supplier to solution provider – not all of them are favorable to Europe. Dittrich claims that Productronica is faring much better than these underlying market trends are. In other words, its losses in size and turnover are much less pronounced than those of its clients: mainly the semiconductor and PCB assembly industries, seriously fighting with adverse market conditions.
“Productronica covers the entire production process,” maintains deputy director Thomas Rehbein. Accordingly, the organizer even further straightened its rigid segmentation – one segment per exhibition hall. The largest space – what else would you expect from a respectable manufacturing show? – is taken up by PCBs from 238 exhibitors. Test and measurement is even larger in the number of exhibitors (268), followed by soldering, component mounting, materials and cable processing. Looking closer, a precipitous drop is visible, all too familiar to Europeans and their pampered but fickle semiconductor makers: only 65 exhibitors are here instead of 105 in the good ol‘ days of 2001.
What can you do as a trade-show organizer in such times of disappointment? You create interesting spots of forums, conference arenas and tutorial demonstrations, pushing one-to-one interaction and networking effects. You do this within the exhibition area and connect them with the exhibited goods and services. One of these strokes to debut this year is an EMS Village with 15 to 20 companies presenting themselves in a relatively modest, roped-off area. Don’t expect a nice and quiet half-timbered village green, but an industry platform with a panel discussion, and a focused day, with keynote lectures on business in Europe and an award ceremony for an outstanding manufacturer.
Two other topics playing to traditional European strengths in advanced manufacturing are present this year: micro-systems technology will be featuring an impressive 71 exhibitors as well as conferences on optical technologies, and live demonstrations presenting, among others, assembly of smart chips. The other segment is logistics and materials-flow technologies as a production factor. It presents some 55 companies and stresses solution-oriented strategic thinking.
Besides maintaining their well-entrenched high-tech industry shows at fountainhead Munich, the organizer is hitting the global scene big-time: “Electronicas all over the world,” is Dittrich’s word for it. Next year for the first time, there will be an electronicaUSA in San Francisco, organized with partner CMP and collocated with their Embedded Systems Conference. Isn’t that a dilution of your visitor stream to Europe? Ditt-rich replied no, to the contrary: “we will gain visitors and exhibitors that we haven’t gotten before.” Especially, he says, exhibitors that reach mainland China. The goal: to create just one strong venue for all of the U.S. – Think big and move out!
China, too, will receive next strong attention. In 2004, ElectronicaChina and ProductronicaChina will be held together in parallel, along with, at least for now, Semi’s Semicon China in Shanghai. There is an unwavering motive behind all of this. In 15 years, Klaus Dittrich envisions ProductronicaChina as more important than the one in Munich where it all began. Or will it be India by then?
Werner Schulz
EPP EUROPE 400
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