The Hannover Fair is the largest industrial trade show. Each year a partner country is featured with this year’s partner being the USA. Not surprisingly, attendance from the USA reached an all-time high at 5,000 out of the 190,000 attendees. PI had its own booth on the red carpet tour route.
With the theme “Integrated Industry – Discover Solutions” the fair showcased Industrie 4.0 and digitalization. These themes could be seen from the 5,200 exhibitors, over half of which were from companies outside of Germany, actually from 75 countries outside Germany. Five hundred and twenty five of the exhibitors were from the USA.
Also attending from the USA was President Obama with whom Germany’s Chancellor Merkel opened the fair on Sunday and toured the fair on Monday. This marked the first time a US president has attended the fair.
Here is a look around the fair with photos provided by Hannover Fair (click to enlarge and start slide show):
PI Booth
The fair provided a “Red Carpet Route – Automation & IT: How you benefit.” Along the route was the PI booth with the theme “PROFINET – backbone of Industrie 4.0.” This was supported with details of PI’s vision for Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things. Featured walls included PROFINET, process, PROFIsafe, IO-Link, and vision. The PI Lounge provided a venue for networking and refreshment.
Some quick facts about the booth:
- 215 sq. meters (2314 sq. ft.)
- 86 co-exhibitors
- Factory Automation Wall with 97 devices
- Process Automation Live Demo with 52 Devices
- PROFIsafe Live Demo with 22 devices
- IO-Link Wall with 175 devices
- 21 company kiosks.
