Fabtech 2019 - Industry 4.0 has arrived

900 flights cancelled and really cold weather are no way to start a tradeshow, Fabtech 2019 being no exception. The tradeshow is one of the last holdouts where we get to meet face to face, belly to belly and have great conversations without emojis. Although my feet are always dead by the end of a show, nothing beats chatting with your customers and partners who stop by your booth, talking with companies in the sheet metal industry that want to see what is new, and getting a feel for what the industry is up to by visiting booths, checking out the conferences and networking with the OEMs.

I have been to more tradeshows than I care to remember or mention (as it will likely age me) and this one, even with the slow start seemed to have the same elements. Amazing looking booths that were well designed and well thought out, excellent swag that ranged from bags, to candy, to animal shaped bottle openers cut with a laser, and really amazing machines and equipment with the usual suspects (BLM, Trumpf, Cylaser etc.). Little did I know that things had changed much more than that I could have expected or even hoped for.

Industry 4.0 (Smart Manufacturing, Advanced Manufacturing, digitization etc.) has been on the radar for a while (at least 10 years by my count). It first started as an idea from the bleeding edge providers and their clients that were willing/able to take the risk or their clients who needed to take the risk to get an edge. Then you started to see some adoption by the big companies with innovation departments that saw the potential and had the ability to invest. Along the way most of the projects did not go well and there was (and always is) skepticism by the small to mid-sized companies. Showing the ROI has always been tricky especially when there are not a lot of case studies to show and the technology was (and still is) evolving.

As a company we, Lantek, have always supported organizations that engage in sheet metal fabrication with their digital journey. Typically starting from the CAD/CAM perspective and moving to the plant floor operations (MES) and then to the business level (ERP). Running machines using CAD/CAM software has been around for over 30 years, so it is a good place to start for a the digital conversation. However, discussions centered around running the manufacturing plant with software and getting visibility with the manufacturing process has usually been challenging because the sheet metal industry is very physical: huge machines with laser beams, cutting large sheets of metal, creating incredible structures etc. Software always seems like an afterthought.

This show was different. By the end of most shows, less than 10% of the of our visitors would have had an interest in manufacturing digitization (this is with us initiating the conversation). This year (almost overnight) 80% of the people that came to our booth either already had software running their shops or were looking for a system to run their shops. Half of our visitors that requested more information asked about software automation (almost five times higher than previous years). This is an amazing development and hopefully not a fluke. I think 2020 will be a very interesting year for the sheet metal industry.

What type of shift have you been seeing from your perspective in the manufacturing industry with respect to software and technology: Negligible, Small, Medium, Large, Seismic?