"Vision 2022 was a complete success and far exceeded our expectations - both on the visitor and exhibitor side. It is also nice to see that the event was able to record a higher international participation again after the pandemic-related restrictions of the previous year. This means that the vision is also developing in the direction of familiar structures again in the context of changed information procurement", says Roland Bleinroth, Managing Director of Messe Stuttgart.

In total, visitors from around 60 countries were registered. The most strongly represented countries were Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Spain and Great Britain. Vision also welcomed a large number of trade visitors from South Korea, Japan and the USA.

In addition to the classic user industries such as electrical engineering/electronics, mechanical and plant engineering as well as the automotive and automotive supplier industries, there was also a large proportion of visitors from non-industrial sectors on site - including medical technology and the pharmaceutical industry, the agricultural industry, aerospace as well as transport and logistics. Accordingly, the interest in offers for non-industrial applications also increased compared to the previous year.

Turnkey machine vision systems also registered increased visitor interest. 55 percent of the visitors stated that they were decisively or co-decisively involved in purchasing and procurement decisions in the company. 27 percent came to the fair with firm investment or purchase intentions. Demand for machine vision components and systems developed more strongly than expected in 2021. Turnover in the German machine vision industry rose by 16 percent to 3.1 billion euros. The European machine vision industry also recorded growth of 17 percent.

At the opening of the trade fair, the VDMA Machine Vision of the Vision confirmed the positive basic mood in the industry: according to Mark Williamson, Chairman of the Board of VDMA Machine Vision, "the machine vision industry continues to conquer new fields of application increasingly also in the non-industrial sector". The positive developments in the machine vision industry were also reflected in the number of exhibiting companies at Vision.
378 exhibitors - 60 percent of them from abroad

In addition to numerous first-time participants, the key players in the industry were on site. "Vision is the central platform for us to present innovations and communicate our repositioning as a solution provider. This year, too, many visitors approached us with concrete new projects. Initiatives such as the Vision Guided Tours for Food & Beverages, Intra-Logistics, Medical & Pharma created new incentives for visitors from applications outside factory automation," said Dr Dietmar Ley, CEO Basler. Technologically, Basler experienced a continuation of the trend themes from recent years at Vision 2022. "We saw further development in the area of artificial intelligence. In this context, Industry 4.0 with cloud architecture and AI-based image processing on edge devices will become further established. 3D technology will also continue to mature and become more cost-effective."

Jan Hartmann, IDS Managing Director, also underlines the importance of Vision as the industry's leading technological trade fair: "Machine vision is a central technology for automation technology, especially in connection with 3D vision and artificial intelligence. At Vision, visitors learned how we facilitate access to these key technologies and help to initiate and optimise automation processes with easy-to-use components."

Beckhoff Automation was present as an exhibiting company at Vision for the first time. Bernd Stöber, Senior Product Manager Vision, was thoroughly satisfied: "Our goal was to present the Vision-Tech industry for the first time with the new hardware products and thus an integrated, control-synchronised complete solution in addition to our previous Vision software solution. After the intensive discussions at Vision, visitors perceive Beckhoff as a complete supplier for vision solutions. This makes it clear for us to be there again as an exhibitor in 2024."

Vision Award 2022 for CAD Software

Kitov.ai was also present for the first time. The company from Israel directly won the Vision Award 2022 at its premiere for its CAD2SCAN software, which significantly simplifies the setup of robotic inspection systems by using CAD-based automated inspection planning. "Winning the Vision Award 2022 allows us to continue the development of this technology and optimise AI. This makes it easier for manufacturers to adopt automated visual inspection. We are immensely grateful to have been given the opportunity to address a wider professional audience. There is no greater appreciation for our work," said Corey Merchant, Vice President Americas at Kitov.ai.

Vision Start-up World on course for growth

Another expression of the industry's innovative strength is Vision Start-up World, where a total of 20 young companies were able to present themselves. During the daily Start-up Pitch Sessions, a Start-up of the Day was chosen, from which Visometry from Darmstadt emerged as Vision Start-up 2022 on the last day of the fair. The company convinced the jury with its "Digital Twin" approach for recognising and tracking components based on their 3D CAD data. This enables quality engineers to carry out a target/actual analysis in order to detect production errors as early as possible in the assembly process.

Lecture programme available on demand

For those who could not be there in person, Vision offered a livestream as well as videos on demand of the entire lecture programme of the Industrial Vision Days. Viewers of the livestream came from a total of 18 countries. Standards as the basis for growth Uniform standards worldwide are regarded as the basis for the acceptance of machine vision technology in the most diverse user industries. This is also emphasised by the European Machine Vision Association EMVA. "As the leading European industry association, we were once again in charge of the 'International Vision Standards' stand in order to bring the standards required for the further growth of the vision industry closer to the trade visitors of Vision. The many new companies and technologies at the fair confirmed this impressively and underpin the performance potential and high vitality of the industry. We are entering a new macro-economic environment and are confident that machine vision is well positioned to continue to create long-term value for our users," summarises Dr Chris Yates, EMVA President.

An assessment that Dr Dietmar Ley, CEO Basler, basically shares: "Currently, the industry is exposed to strong market dynamics. Past experience shows that declines in demand have usually not lasted longer than 18 months. We assume that the market will recover in 2024 and that the situation on the materials markets for electronic components will still improve in the course of 2023."

The next Vision will take place from 8 to 10 October 2024.