With approx. 31,000 visitors, Automatica 2010 provided important stimuli for the economic development of the automation industry. Automatica, International Trade Fair for Automation and Mechatronics, took place in Munich from 8 to 11 June 2010 and presented the world's largest range of products in robotics and automation. It expanded its leadership role and again attracted decision-makers and experts from the whole world.

High number of visitors from foreign countries
The good results were reflected in a very high number of trade fair visitors and an increase in the number of foreign guests. Overall, 34 percent of the visitors came from other countries, which represents a substantial increase of 26 percent compared to 2008. The visitors came from 114 countries. In addition to Germany, the highest number of visitors came from Austria, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, France, Slovenia, the USA, Spain, Great Britain and Denmark.

Top grades from visitors
The representative survey conducted by the independent institute TNS infratest clearly demonstrated visitor satisfaction:  is a leading trade fair for 88 percent of the visitors. 94% of the exhibitors assessed Automatica  2010 as "excellent to good". 92 percent of the visitors gave top grades for the completeness of the range of offers.

All key players present again
The results among exhibitors underline the importance Automatica  as a leading international trade fair of the automation industry. Automatica  2010 recorded 708 exhibitors. The trade fair took place in four completely filled halls on 44,000 sq. m. The share of foreign exhibitors was 32 percent. A total of 42 countries were represented. The satisfaction of the exhibitors is also reflected in the survey results. 96 percent praised the excellent mood in the halls and 77 percent the high quality of visitors.

Statements about Automatica  2010
Enis Ersü, Chairman, CEO Chief Executive Officer, ISRA Vision AG, Germany
Automatica  2010 took another big development step on the way to becoming a leading international trade fair for automation. Our expectations were fulfilled completely. Thanks to the great variety of industries represented, we could reach precisely those visitors whom we wanted to address. Especially the high share of trade visitors speaks in favour of Automatica . Customers used direct contact in a targeted manner to find solutions for their special needs and tasks - a positive exchange for both sides. The share of visitors from other countries - especially from China and India - is clearly noticeable this year. The initiative "Green Automation" is a good, supplementary rounding out of the trade fair program, to which we could contribute with participation in the leading exhibit "cable robot" for automatic mounting of solar parabolic mirrors. Conclusion: Automatica  2010 was a successful event for us, and we expect good trade fair follow-up business after all the positive discussions.

Dr. Norbert Stein, General Manager, Vitronic Dr. Norbert Stein Bildbearbeitungssysteme GmbH, Germany
This Automatica  2010 was better for us than the previous fair in 2008, and we had a lot of visitors except for on the first day. We met our target group in part here; a very wide industry range is represented here with focal point on automation. We believe that the areas of medical devices and pharmaceuticals were underrepresented. However, we got to know very many new interested parties and even decision-makers as well as many engineers with specific questions. And these are the technology pioneers for the actual decision-makers.

Jürgen Nothvogel, Sales Manager for Machine Vision Components, Stemmer Imaging GmbH, Germany
Automatica  2010 was very positive for us. We were able to satisfy the specific enquiries of our important visitors with our products. The level of visitors was very high. You could sense the internationalism of Automatica  especially strongly this year. There were considerably more visitors from other countries. Automatica  is a great trade fair, which addresses the right customer group for us. This high potential gives us hope that trade fair follow-up business will also be stronger.

Maciej Kaniewski, Project Manager, Robo3DVision, Division of AIC S.A., Poland
I was very surprised in a positive way; I had not expected so much interest. I did not notice anything from the economic crisis; the opposite was rather the fact. I did not even have time to look around. My target group is composed of system integrators, and very many of them were here. I was here as a visitor last year. This year, I sense that although the number of exhibitors declined, the quality has increased. The systems are lot better than in 2008. The follow-up business to the trade fair is going to put excessive demands on us, and we need more people for that.

Roland Noz, Managing Director, Sick Vertriebs-GmbH, Germany
We are very satisfied with the course of the trade fair as a company exhibiting here for the first time. With its industry focus, Automatica  fits very well in our trade fair concept to present our solutions customised for customer needs at industry trade fairs. We have the opportunity to do this here at Automatica . Customers and those interested come with very specific requirements and projects. With our very wide-ranged portfolio of intelligent products, solutions and services, we can offer them support. The quality of discussions with customers and interested parties was very high here at Automatica.

Peter Schmitt, Sales Engineer, Balluff GmbH, Germany
We have remained loyal to Automatica  as an exhibitor since its start. Our staff conducted many positive discussions this year too. Although there is still room for further improvement, we are going to push forward this slight upward trend in follow-up business to the trade fair.

Henrik A. Schunk, Managing Partner, Schunk GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
We are very satisfied with Automatica  2010, although we think that the number of visitors has declined slightly. However, this has been compensated for in that the level of the visitors is especially high this year. Almost one-third of our visitors come from other countries. We can offer our solutions to these customers for their specific application problems. We had high expectations for Automatica , and these have been fulfilled completely. We found the completely positive basic mood during the whole trade fair to be especially pleasant.

Wilfried Eberhardt, Managing Director Sales & Marketing, KUKA Roboter GmbH, Germany
An unusually large number of decision-makers from the production and automation industry were at our stand, with whom we were able to conduct far-reaching and intensive discussions. The quality of trade visitors was excellent. The main topic in the discussions was resource optimisation, especially saving energy in production. The enthusiasm of our visitors demonstrated that the new control generation KRC4 and the new robot generation Quantec are just what the market is looking for. The demand at the end increased enormously; the interest in automation product was demonstrated in the discussions at our stand and in the high number of visitors at Automatica . We explicitly selected Automatica to celebrate two world premiers: our new control generation and our new robot generation.

Gerald Mies, CEO, Vice President FANUC Robotics Europe S. A., Germany
After three of four trade fair days at Automatica , we have already had substantially more visitors than at the last fair. We had extremely good trade fair visitors, and our stand was full almost the whole day. The system partners were also very satisfied. For example, our partners from Portugal had very, very many contacts and were completely full of enthusiasm. Automatica  is extremely important for us; it is our main trade fair, and it is our marketplace for robotics. This has been confirmed, and the great deal of work has paid off. We are very satisfied with the internationalism of the trade fair. We had lots of visitors from Russia, Eastern Europe and the Benelux countries. The quality of the trade fair is high, and our system partners at our stand reported a lot of concrete enquiries and discussions about detailed solutions.

Rainer Jost, Global Marketing, Bosch Rexroth, Germany
Automatica  provides us with a platform to present Rexroth system competence in all drive, control and assembly technologies at one place. In our experience, interest of the trade fair visitors concentrates on system decisions for new investments in assembly and monitoring systems. Rexroth cultivated intensive contact with a very focused presentation in 2010 and will again participate in Automatica in 2012 with a bigger exhibition corresponding to our market position.

Dr. Michael Wenzel, Managing Director, Reis Robotics 
Automatica  2010 has fulfilled our expectations completely, including against the background of the difficult times. We can emphasize the substantially increase share of visitors from other countries as something especially positive. The high share reflects the current general economic situation: the strong export orientation of Germany and the general condition of the market. And of course that an increasing number of foreigners are obviously finding the way to Automatica  too. Automatica is unconditionally the leading world trade fair for robotics for us. The initiative 'Green Automation' also resulted in numerous positive customer reactions. The label also gives us the chance to illustrate the advantages of automation technology from another viewpoint. This is namely not only in increasing effectiveness, productivity and cost savings, but also in putting environmental concerns explicitly in the forefront in connection with automation systems.

Dr. Michael Zürn, Senior Manager Process Engineering, Daimler AG, Germany
Automatica  is extremely important for us. It presents all automation technologies and the state of developments. Very many of our employees are here to see what is offered. Automatica  is the trade fair for me." An enormously wide range of products is shown at Automatica , and a few real top-rate, innovative assembly technologies also stand out. We are leading in innovative assembly and handling technology, and first-rate, highly innovative user technology interests us. The trade fair is structured very well. I was very pleased that the people continued to work during the crisis and already developed the innovations, which they exhibited at Automatica now. It is precisely with innovations that we will surmount the crisis. About the initiative Green Automation: The topic is very significant for our company. We see that we have a great deal of potential in production, and we are in the process of realizing it.
One area, which I find very good at the trade fair, is the topic of "Human-Robot Cooperation". This will advance the productive capacity of automation even more.

Arne Lakeit, Production and Plant Planning Manager, Audi, Germany
Automatica  has various aspects for me as a visitor. Firstly, I meet a lot of partners and component suppliers there, with whom we at Audi manage joint projects. Secondly, the wide range of suppliers gives you a good feel for the direction in which the industry will move in the future: which trends are developing, and which focal points are currently being set. And thirdly, there are smaller exhibitors with interesting ideas time and again in addition to the industry powerhouses, which you stumble upon in the literal sense of the word. Many of these ideas stimulate ideas in me and my staff to use new solutions in our daily work too. I especially find the wide range of topics, which are offered at Automatica , to be extremely interesting. Not only the developments from robotics, but also many areas of automation are presented here. The close relation to actual practice is what I especially appreciate at Automatica . I hope that Automatica  keeps this focal point. We appreciate this orientation and are looking forward to using to this offer in the future too.

Hans-Dieter Baumtrog, CEO, sortimat Technology GmbH & Co., Germany
This year's AUTOMATICA fulfilled my expectations completely. Compared to the preceding trade fairs, but also in comparison to all other trade fairs of the last two years, this was the best trade fair that I have been to as an exhibitor.

Heinz Gerteiser, Managing Director, Robotics Business Division, ABB Automation GmbH, Germany
I expected that the trade fair would be very good, and that is exactly as it was. We did not notice anything from the economic crisis; however, we would have liked somewhat more visitors from other countries. We would have preferred fifty-fifty. The great advantage of Automatica  is that is attracts precisely our clientele: the automobile industry, but also increasingly industry in general and thereby especially small- and medium-sized enterprises. More students were there this year, and that is also positive.