With over 900 exhibitors from 24 countries displaying more than 1,000 machines, IMTEX 2015 was a resounding success | By Shafquat Ali | With an entrepreneur leading the country,
the industry is positively upbeat – and this mood is amply reflected here,” Dr Jens Hardenacke, CEO, DMG Mori, told Manufacturing Today, best summing up the optimism at IMTEX and Tooltech 2015. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ‘Make in India’ movement has clearly gone down very well not only with Indian manufacturers but also with international heavyweights.
India’s largest biennial exhibition – IMTEX and Tooltech 2015 – held between January 22 and 28 at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) showcased the best the manufacturing industry had to offer. Reverberating with talk of the Make in India movement and how the PM is giving a much-needed fillip to the manufacturing sector, IMTEX 2015 and Tooltech 2015, that ran concurrent with IMTEX5 at the same venue, were buzzing with buyers and sellers, industry professionals, government officials, state and central ministers and foreign delegates of the machine tool industry.
While IMTEX 2015 was the 17th Indian metal cutting machine tool exhibition, Tooltech 2015 was the 17th international exhibition of cutting tools, tooling systems, machine tool accessories, metrology and CAD/CAM featuring newest trends in cutting tools and tooling systems from all across the globe.
More than living up to its reputation as the largest exhibition of metalcutting machine tools and manufacturing solutions in South and South-East Asia, IMTEX showcased the exhaustive range of innovations and technological refinements in the complete product segment of metal-cutting machine tools.
“As always IMTEX has been showcasing new technological innovations from the global manufacturing industry and this year is no different,” Jamshyd N Godrej, chairman, exhibitions, Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA) and chairman & MD, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company, pointed out in his welcome address. “A great market- place for the industry, IMTEX 2015 will be highlighting emerging trends in 5-axis machines, multi-task machines, new measuring methodologies, force controlled robots and many more.”
Addressing the gathering at the inauguration ceremony, L Krishnan, president, IMTMA, took the opportunity to stress on the Make in India movement and what it means to the manufacturing industry in general. “Thanks largely to the Make in India movement and the Prime Minister’s initiatives to boost the manufacturing industry, negative business sentiments that prevailed during the past few years have become positive now, and this is now a good sign for the manufacturing industry,”he said, adding that “the machine tool industry will play an important role in contributing to the Make in India campaign in a very big way. And, by all accounts, the growth in the electronics industry and consumer sectors like automotive and automotive components will drive the growth of the machine tool industry.”
“IMTEX is a crucial exhibition to propel the Indian manufacturing sector towards productivity and high quality and to make Indian-manufactured products globally acceptable,” he continued. “IMTEX 2015 will boost the Indian economy as companies reach out to tens and thousands of customers at the event.” Indeed, several companies – both Indian and international – took the opportunity to launch and showcase a wide range of products.
“Leadership is going to be the key, to stay competitive,” said Tarun Das, former chief mentor at CII and founding trustee, Ananta Aspen Centre. “Building leaders for tomorrow is the way forward for the machine tool industry, and hence this calls for investment in leaders. As a nation we are growing faster than other economies of the world. The focus is to be on developing leaders.”
And leaders of all hues – past, present and future – were out in full force at IMTEX 2015. “IMTEX is a great platform for the industry and I can tell that the machine tool industry will play an important role in the Make in India movement,” added GM Siddeshwara, Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.
The manufacturing industry showed its true strength with over 900 exhibitors from 24 countries displaying more than 1,000 machines ‘live’. What’s more, IMTEX 2015 had eight group participations from China, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Taiwan and USA with foreign visitors from 50 countries and Indian visitors from 26 countries. It is no mean achievement that the exhibition attracted a wide spectrum of manufacturing and ancillary industries starting with key decision and policy makers as well as industry leaders, who were keen to source latest technologies and manufacturing solutions for their production lines.
IMTEX is a crucial exhibition to propel the Indian manufacturing sector towards productivity and high quality and to make Indian-manufactured products globally acceptable.
L Krishnan, president, IMTMA
Symbolising a one-stop forum where customers can experience ‘live’ display of the products enabling them in the decision making process, IMTEX 2015 spearheaded a wide range of opportunities for everyone connected to metal-cutting – from machine tool users to manufacturing experts to technocrats, researchers, policy-makers, academia and even budding engineers and technology graduates. Tooltech 2015, on the other hand, showcased recent innovations in technology, design and product development to achieve competitiveness and excellence in the machine tool industry. It highlighted recent innovations in technology, design and product development with the aim of bringing cost competitiveness in all metal working operations. The world’s leading brands unveiled their explicit range of cutting tools at the event.
As the exhibition played host to over 80,000 business visitors from both Indian and international manufacturing companies, it was hardly surprising that virtually all machines displayed at the exhibition sold out. In addition, hundreds of crores worth of deals were signed and thousands of serious business enquiries were generated.
All in all, IMTEX 2015 more than lived up to its promise of readying the Indian manufacturing sector in the wake of the Make in India movement. If anything it was clear at IMTEX that India’s aspiration of being part of the top five machine tool markets by 2017 is no longer a pipe dream. Big-ticket events like IMTEX 2015 play a key role in not only becoming a platform for technology exchange but also in strengthening the foundation for further growth; they will also helping realise the country’s cherished goals.
IMTEX 2015 marked the beginning of a new era for the manufacturing industry and reinforced a stepping stone towards Indian machine tool industry’s Vision 2020 – a vision that sees the country becoming a global machine tool player. As a slew of Indian companies launched their products at this year’s IMTEX and confidently competed with international players, it was evident that Indian manufacturers are brimming with confidence. They are now ready to break new grounds and take their rightful place in the global machine tool arena. At IMTEX 2015, they gave the world a glimpse of the shape of things to come. To borrow Krishnan’s words, IMTEX 2015 succeeded in providing a thrust to the Make in India movement!