Images

There was a lively crowd of Logimat visitors at the East Entrance of Messe Stuttgart throughout the morning. © Weka Business Media/ Daniel Schilling

All the halls of the exhibition grounds at Stuttgart Airport are occupied this year at Logimat and the outdoor area between the halls will also be used in part for exhibits and demonstrations. This year's motto is "Hands-on Innovation: Connecting Smart Networks!".

From April 25 to 27, more than 1,500 exhibitors from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa will be presenting their current range of products, systems and solutions for efficient intralogistics processes to international trade visitors on a total area of 125,000 square meters: an increase of more than 7 percent compared to the previous year.

More international orientation

Against the backdrop of the global economic situation, the degree of internationalization at Logimat is increasing. The proportion of international exhibitors has risen to a good third this year. A further indication of the increasing internationalization: the proportion of international companies among the 200 or so new exhibitors coming to Stuttgart for the first time this year is almost 70 percent. "With 25 new exhibitors from Asia alone, including 20 from the People's Republic of China, companies from overseas account for a total of 25 percent," summarizes Exhibition Director Michael Ruchty. "We are also pleased to see slight growth from Africa and South America."

In order to fulfill the claim of a "trade fair of short distances" again this year, the ten exhibition halls are once again divided into exhibitor groups. The strongest exhibitor segment, the system integrators, machine and plant manufacturers, will present its current range of products and solutions for efficient goods flows in Halls 1 - together with Gallery 3, 5 and 7. The products, systems and solutions on display there cover the requirements of current demand trends.

Applications from the cloud and AI-supported technology

Hall 7 is shared by system integrators, machine and plant manufacturers and exhibitors of complementary product ranges and new developments in the fields of handling, cranes, fire protection and safety, loading technology and gates. There, trade fair visitors can find out all about the latest crane sets, turnkey systems, transfer cars and floor lifters, lifting and handling systems for a wide variety of loads as well as drive systems for unidirectional, bidirectional or omnidirectional maneuverability.

The international industrial truck industry will be presenting its latest new developments and concept studies in Hall 9 and Hall 10 on the opposite southern axis of the exhibition grounds, as well as in the outdoor area between Halls 10 and 8. Once again this year, almost all of the world's leading manufacturers will be present in Stuttgart. The spectrum of new developments on show ranges from the latest forklift trucks, order picking vehicles and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to new equipment features such as innovative alternatives to the steering wheel and new developments in driver assistance and fleet management systems through to "green performance" and alternative drive technologies together with battery and energy management. Premieres have been announced in areas such as reach trucks, electric counterbalance and multidirectional forklifts, vertical order pickers, narrow-aisle trucks and pallet trucks.

Enablers for meeting the requirements of process automation and digitalization are the controlling and analysing information technologies (IT). The providers of software solutions for intralogistics, the second strongest exhibitor group at Logimat 2023, will present numerous further developments of innovative functionalities for warehouse and transport management systems in Hall 8. In addition, new high-performance material flow computers, analysis modules for business and performance data, an EDI portal solution for document exchange without an ERP system, new applications from the cloud and AI-supported technology for real-time analysis during image capture will be on display.

10,500 square meters of exhibition space for AGVs and robots

The annual trade fair opened its doors to trade visitors at 9 a.m. today. By midday, it was clear that there was a high level of interest from visitors, which corresponded with the fully booked halls.

Another novelty in 2023 concerns the area of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and robotics. "This segment is currently developing so dynamically that we have expanded the exhibition space to meet the high demand from companies," explains Exhibition Director Ruchty. "We have moved the area to Hall 6. With a total of 10,500 square meters, more than twice as much exhibition space is available there for mobile materials handling equipment and robots compared to last year". Among other things, the latest stationary and mobile picking and collaborative robots with AI-based image processing programs as well as the first fully autonomous AGVs for both internal and external transport will be on display. AGVs are also on show as exhibits.

Last but not least, international exhibitors from the fields of RFID/auto-ID, labeling and packaging/containers will occupy Halls 2 and 4 as well as the entire south side in the East Entrance area with exhibits of their latest developments. Visitors to the trade fair can expect to see a range of products and services from advanced plastic and new, battery-free smart labels to Scantore for on-the-fly code detection and Airpop packaging for transporting and shipping temperature-sensitive products, as well as newly developed, fully automated complete systems from packaging machines for paper bags.

In addition, there will once again be an exhibition area for young innovative companies in the East Entrance, which is sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection.

This article appeared in issue 4/23