It’s the dead of winter, and travel is probably the last thing you want to think about. However, the industries you serve need your expertise in automation and powertrains more than ever, and you need their insights about where they want to go with your products. The spring of 2019 is prime time for three major events that professionals associated with hydraulics and pneumatics should start thinking about. Just reading through the agendas for these shows and conferences will help you sharpen your own business priorities for the New Year while it’s still young.
The items we’re recommending for your planner are The Work Truck Show (March 5 to 8, Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis), Hannover Fair (April 1 to 5, Hannover, Germany), and Bauma (April 8 to 14, Munich).
First up is The Work Truck Show, which offers an opportunity to meet with specialists whose unusual mix of talents must be combined to come up with the one-off solutions often required by customers with huge mining and manufacturing jobs to do. Aside from its exhibit of the newest industry products, this show hosts dozens of industry-focused training courses offered by technical engineering representatives from hundreds of exhibiting companies.
During the show, attendees will have access to three related events, each of which will help you get more value out of your show experience:
- The Green Truck Summit will offer programs led by industry experts and fleet managers, covering the transition to alternative fuels and smarter trucks. The focus will be on turning commercial vehicles into work systems and on developing an electric infrastructure by partnering with a wide variety of private and public funding resources.
- The Fleet Technical Congress will present new strategies and processes for disaster recovery planning, securing reliable fuel supplies, designing work trucks, and improving last-mile delivery options.
- The Manufacturer and Distributor Innovation Conference will help commercial truck manufacturers, upfitters, distributors, and body builders improve their manufacturing efficiency and business results. Of special interest to H&P’s audience, Stan Stanford, general manager of Parker Hannifin’s Chelsea Products division, will use his prior experience as the company’s hydraulic valve and gear pump divisions manager to provide insights into developing a world-class lean manufacturing environment focused on continuous improvement. That includes the challenge of attracting and training the talent to make such environments thrive.
Next comes Hannover Fair, which offers professionals in fluid power a deeper dive into their specialty, via the Integrated Automation, Motion & Drives portion of the show. The focus this year will be on the role smart fluid power and power transmission solutions play in Industry 4.0 and its predictive maintenance systems. Professionals will discuss:
- Environments where data are collected from power transmission and fluid power components via sensors and transmitters;
- How the data collected are sent via the internet to a central system that records, sorts, and interprets it for managers; and
- How managers use the data they collect to keep all the people and machinery in their enterprise productive.
Hannover is the ideal environment for fluid power professionals to show other attendees how their sensor interfaces, diagnostic functions, and control options can support efficient and scalable applications and help lower life cycle costs.
The very next week Germany will then host Bauma, the international showcase for construction and mining equipment—which together represent industry’s largest application of hydraulics. This year the hottest trend for fluid power professionals serving these industries to consider is the alternative drives required to enable electromobility in general and driverless vehicles in particular. The world’s leading manufacturers will be showcasing their developments and discussing the opportunities and challenges presented by this new technology.
Bauma is the place to show how alternative drives will enable cleaner, quieter, and more efficient machinery via electrification. Discussions will focus on:
- How companies are upgrading their smaller machines in the lower power range with electric drives;
- How hybrid vehicles can handle light work, then engage a combustion engine for jobs requiring maximum power;
- The growing use of driverless construction machinery in the mining industry, particularly in quarries where the same routes are always followed from quarrying site to processing;
- How excavators will dig excavation pits autonomously;
- Which applications should not go the autonomous route, due to complexity and safety concerns.