An official press conference, held at the end of November in Taipei, outlined how next year’s TIMTOS (Taipei International Machine Tool Show) — the world’s third-largest machine tool show — will be highlighting the steps Taiwan’s machine tool manufacturers are taking to embrace Industry 4.0 and ‘smart manufacturing’ (www.timtos.com.tw).

Walter Yeh, president and CEO of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), said: “Visitors will be able to see a number of digitalised solutions that integrate industrial robots, sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT) and ‘big data’ analysis for whole-plant operations, thereby providing manufacturers with more flexibility and efficiency when responding to customers’ needs for high-variety low-volume production.

"A new ‘AI and Startups’ exhibition area will feature the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help companies achieve ‘human-machine collaboration’ and make automated production lines more efficient and resilient.”

Held in the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Centre (Halls 1 and 2) and at the Taipei World Trade Centre (Halls 1 and 3), next year’s TIMTOS will take place from 4 to 9 March and will feature 1,230 exhibitors from 26 countries.

Hall 2 at the new Taipei Nangang Exhibition Centre is being officially opened at the show and will be required to accommodate the record number of exhibitors. A free shuttle service will run between the two venues.

TIMTOS — renowned as the ‘shop window’ for Taiwan’s machine tool manufacturing industry — is expected to attract over 50,000 visitors, with Tongtai, Goodway, Hartford, Chmer, YCM, Victor Taichung, Chin Fong, Seyi, PMI, Hiwin, Posa and Delta among the Taiwanese companies that will be exhibiting.

In addition, a number of multi-national companies will be participating, including Mazak, DMG Mori, Fanuc, Mitsubishi, THK, Heidenhain, Siemens, GF Machining Solutions, Universal Robots and Haas Automation.

There will also be a number of international pavilions, including those hosted by the USA, Denmark and Turkey (participating for the first time), as well as Switzerland and Germany (which have been exhibiting at TIMTOS for many years).

Also featured will be the TIMTOS Summit where industry experts — along with top executives from firms including DMG Mori, ABB, Heidenhain, Dassault and Siemens — will provide an insight into a variety of areas, including additive manufacturing, automotive manufacturing and the aerospace supply chain, as well as Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.

In the first 10 months of 2018, the total export value of Taiwanese machine tools reached $3.034 billion, an increase of 12.3% over the first 10 months of 2017 — ranking the country as the world’s fourth-largest exporter of machine tools. Top export destinations are China, the USA, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Germany; the UK is ranked 16th.