March 2020

52 n SHOW PREVIEW March 2020 www.drivesncontrols.com European Transmission Distributors Association will again be hosting pavilions where some of their members will be promoting their activities. Alongside Drives & Controls is the now firmly established Smart Industry Expo, where visitors will have an opportunity to learn about digitalisation and how to prepare and implement strategies for the smart manufacturing era, as well as being able to discuss a wide range of issues from predictive maintenance, to logistics and smart grid technologies. Other areas that will be covered include: components for IT- based automation that will bring fundamental change to in-factory processes; cybersecurity; as well as smart technologies that manage and coordinate energy networks so that capacity can be deployed optimally across a facility. New and returning exhibitors in Smart Industry Expo include: n IEW n Lamonde n Sigmatek n Codra n OEE Systems n Brainboxes n ifm electronic n Balluff Visitors toMitsubishi Electric’s stand (D620) at the Drives & Controls showwill be able to give voice commands to a collaborative robot (cobot) as well as seeing an intelligent, high- speed pick-and-place system in operation. There will be demonstrations of high- bandwidth, time-sensitive industrial Ethernet, as well as new ranges of new inverters, PLCs and servo products that are said to offer better performance andmore advanced connections than ever before. The company is focussing on practical technologies that will allowmanufacturers and machine-builders to realise the real advantages of smart automation systems. Most of its standwill be devoted to products and technologies that deliver on the promise of a truly“smart” factory. “There are somany productivity and efficiency benefits to be gained fromusing the latest automation equipment that we wanted to offer visitors the chance to see these innovations in action,” explains Mitsubishi’s UK marketing and operations groupmanager, Chris Evans.“Some are about speed and performance; others offer a completely new way of doing things. “The voice command demo, for example, not only shows-off our new cobot – that works without the need for any physical safety barriers – but also the fact that each instruction is processed securely via a cloud interface that anyMitsubishi Electric integrator could set up,” he adds.“To get themost from the latest technology, we believe it has to be easy to commission and use.” Your chance to tell a cobot what to do Heavyweight, strong and extremely accurate www.hepcomotion.com Tel: 01884 257000 HDS2 - Heavy Duty Slide System