The much-awaited IMTEX is finally back after a prolonged hiatus of four years. IMTEX today occupies a premier position in the exhibition landscape as South Asia’s largest machine tool and manufacturing technology exhibition. Since its beginning in 1969 in Mumbai, it has showcased every change and shift in metalworking technology to enable Indian manufacturers to innovate, reinvent, evolve and stay relevant for their customers.
For more than five decades, the exhibition has brought diverse groups and stakeholders on a common platform for knowledge sharing and transacting business. In its maiden avatar in 1969, IMTEX was organised in a 7,000 square metres premises in Vikhroli, Mumbai, with participation from 26 companies. The IMTEX 2023 edition will be held in an exhibit space of 70,000 square metres representing 850+ exhibitors from 23 countries. It will showcase technologies that are the most advanced solutions to challenges faced by industries and the supply chain.
Ravi Raghavan, President, IMTMA in an exclusive interaction with Manufacturing Today, shares the preparations for organising IMTEX 2023 and how IMTMA, as an apex body representing the machine tool industry in India, plays a significant role in country’s economic and manufacturing growth.
The much-awaited IMTEX is finally back after a prolonged hiatus of 4 years. What are your immediate priorities?
Indian machine tool industry is eager to showcase its products, solutions and innovations, meet and network with peers, customers, and vendors, both national and international at IMTEX 2023, a much-awaited show.
Our immediate priorities:
- Showcase actual products and technologies physically to user sectors and participants. Bring the best machine tool manufacturing & digital manufacturing solutions, products, and technologies to the exhibition.
- Enable the manufacturing industry’s digitalisation adoption and journey through the Digital Manufacturing show running concurrent to IMTEX 2023. Exhibitors, by showcasing evolving Industry 4.0 hardware, software and solutions, additive manufacturing, and other prominent technologies, will help the advancements of industries in India.
- Bring trade delegations from cross-sectors and network with them to showcase the products and solutions built by the machine tool industry.
- Introduce select international buyers with prominent Indian machine tool builders through the International Buyer-Seller Meet and help the machine tool manufacturers promote their homegrown products and solutions.
- Knowledge sharing on Machining, Work Holding & Tooling, Additive Manufacturing, Enabling Technologies, Emerging Trends and Automation through the International Seminar on Machining Technologies, which will be organised concurrent with IMTEX.
What are the highlights and new features that you have added on to IMTEX, Tooltech & Digital Manufacturing 2023?
- IMTEX 2023, Tooltech 2023 & Digital Manufacturing 2023: IMTEX has around 850+ exhibitors from 23 countries of which close to 240 exhibitors are from overseas. Exhibitors from Australia, Austria, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK, and USA are showcasing their products and solutions during IMTEX 2023. China, Germany, Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and USA will have country pavilions.
- International Seminar on Manufacturing Technologies: Will be held on January 18, 2023, one day prior to IMTEX. This International Seminar aims to present the latest technological developments in manufacturing and allied technologies that users can adopt in their production processes.
- i2 Academia Pavilion: Fruitful collaboration between industry and academia, when put to good use, can nurture technology development, resulting in industries enhancing their capacities to manufacture high-tech products, bring product diversification, and help localize imports. At i2 Academia Pavilion, premier institutions, including IITs, will present their R&D to industries.
- International Buyer Seller Meet: To promote exports of machine tools and to facilitate market linkages for machine tool exports from India to other countries, IMTMA is organising an international buyer-seller meet during IMTEX 2023. The meet provides a platform for B2B meetings between international and national players, explore different market needs and opportunities.
- Jagruti: A special initiative in which students will be given a guided tour of the entire IMTEX, including a visit to the IMTMA Technology Centre in BIEC. Students from select engineering institutions will participate in the 15th Jagruti – IMTMA Youth Programme, scheduled on 21 – 22 January 2023.
- Connect: A forum to meet and hire young engineers, the platform will provide an opportunity for them to demonstrate their capabilities, skills, and competitiveness to get inducted into machine tool companies on 22nd January 2023 during IMTEX 2023.
IMTEX which has a rich history of more than 50 years ranks among the world’s top ten shows in manufacturing. How is IMTEX creating new avenues for the machine tool manufacturers?
IMTEX brings national and international companies on a unified platform for business-to-business deliberations and closer interaction between vendors and customers and facilitates networking among all stakeholders. IMTMA always reaches out to new and emerging sectors in the manufacturing industry to identify new requirements which machine tool companies foresee to address. These emerging sectors are creating new business opportunities for the machine tool industry. Besides auto industry, visitors from emerging sectors like defence, aerospace, medical, agriculture, etc. are also visiting the show which has given the show a new direction.
What are IMTMA’s contributions in enabling India to meet its goal of becoming a global manufacturing hub?
IMTMA has been working closely with the Government of India to fulfil the needs of manufacturing industry. Towards this it works with various industry associations through regional clusters which has helped it gauge the needs of the market. IMTMA has created various national assets like Advanced Manufacturing Technology Development Centre (AMTDC) at IIT-Madras, Advanced Machine Tool Testing Facility (AMTTF) at CMTI, Bengaluru and the Tumakuru Machine Tool Park (TMTP) at Vasanthanarasapura in Tumkur district. This is helping the machine tool industry find the next level of growth to become a globally competitive industry. Exhibitions like IMTEX have given the added impetus for the Association to realize its goal. The Association also conducts systematic research on various international markets and keeps updating member companies to enhance their capabilities to entre new markets.
The Government of India is promoting Atmanirbar Bharat initiative. How has it impacted the machine tool industry in India, considering the Indian machine tool industry still depends on imports to meet its requirements?
Conventionally, our domestic market consumption has been higher, and exports have tended to be low. India, however is building its own technologies to be self-sufficient. Examples include the technologies being developed at Advanced Manufacturing Technology Development Centre (AMTDC) set up at IIT-Madras in 2016 under the Scheme for Enhancement of Competitiveness of Indian Capital Goods Sector. During 2020 – 2021, AMTDC developed Kite, a technology innovation platform for indigenizing technologies. AMTDC has proposed six projects under the capital goods scheme, which are in various stages of sanction. This is for machine tool related product and technology development.
Similarly, Advanced Machine Tool Testing Facility (AMTTF) set up at Central Manufacturing Technology Institute (CMTI) in Bengaluru by DPIIT conducts testing of machine tools and engineering equipment. AMTTF has completed 350 assignments serving more than 70 customers during FY 2021-22. All these endeavours are helping in offering solutions for enhancing the performance of machines in terms of accuracy, speed and bring the machine tool industry to be at par with international standards to compete with global manufacturers.
IoT, ML and AI are changing the ways of the manufacturing sector. What kind of changes are you witnessing in the machine tools industry?
The increasing integration of 3D printing technology with machine tools, advancements in hardware technology and software applications, and increasing levels of automation are driving factors. Machine tool manufacturers are adapting to these trends. While big companies have already implemented automation and IoT-ready machines, artificial intelligence, etc., small companies are doing it in stages.
SMEs contribute majorly to the growth of India’s machine tools industry and manufacturing sector. How geared up are SMEs to adapt to the technological changes that are taking place in the industry?MSMEs are developing and deploying Industry 4.0 and automation solutions within their work environment in stages without disturbing their everyday manufacturing activities. The industry is also embedding sensors in machines, equipments, and sub-systems as a standard feature coupled with deploying price-competitive automation and establishing machine-to-machine communication to enable the implementation of Industry 4.0 in factory premises. Industry 4.0 solution providers are offering customised solutions for industries across supply-chain, process monitoring, maintenance, remote operation and maintenance assistance, real-time shopfloor monitoring of production and remotely assisted installation and commissioning, and finance.
Are Indian machine tool manufacturers equipped to cut down on imports and how is IMTMA as an organisation and IMTEX as a platform helping them?
Around 55% consumption of machine tools is met by local manufacturing, while in the case of turning centre, more than 80% is met by domestic manufacturing. Indian machine tool industry imports high-end technology and large-size machines substantially. Attempts are being made to develop homegrown technologies and product development through government schemes, cluster initiatives to educate SMEs on various business activities and inculcate value-driven working practices to enable them to grow as self-sustaining enterprises, and self-funded R&D which can increase the level of competency.
Trade and industry exhibitions are significant for machine tool industries. But COVID-19 has led to the cancellation of live events and the digitalization of trade shows. What does this mean for the industry? What is your opinion about digital and live events complementing each other?
Covid had put the exhibition industry on the back foot. Now the market has opened completely, and exhibitions have come back to their original format and the trend that we are now observing is that every exhibition has seen success with increasing visitor footfall. Though there are some restrictions in select countries that have not deterred the spirit of companies to participate in exhibitions. In fact, every industry has now developed technologies to meet the new requirements of their customers and that is clearly visible through the business growth that we are witnessing in the manufacturing industry. Visitors are getting the benefit of this when they are visiting the shows. Digital events will have a very limited lifespan and it has happened so. People love to visit and see the shows personally so that they can take informed decisions.