EMO World Tour touches down in London

Dr Markus Heering, executive director of EMO. Photo: John Hunter

Earlier this month, the EMO World Tour 2025 arrived in London to brief journalists on the world's leading trade fair for production technology, which is taking place 22 to 26 September in Hanover.

For 50 years, EMO has been the most significant global platform for the metalworking industry, spanning the entire value chain. Organised by VDW (the German Machine Tool Builders' Association), the exhibition has provided a unique stage for showcasing innovative products, cutting-edge manufacturing solutions, and specialised services, offering extensive international visibility to companies worldwide. The show‘s 50-year milestone will be celebrated at EMO.

For UK manufacturing professionals, the exhibition serves as an international hub for initiating new business transactions, fostering cooperation, and enhancing professional networking. Additionally, it delivers timely and insightful updates about current developments and challenges within the metalworking sector.

Under the theme ‘Innovate Manufacturing’, EMO Hannover 2025 will be offering engineering companies a wide range of inspiring innovations and solutions. Top of the agenda will be ways to modernise production, new strategies to combat the shortage of skilled workers, and ways to implement solutions for a more circular economy, including improved resource efficiency.

Time to embrace new technologies
The VDW says it is now crucial for the sector as a whole to embrace new technologies and solutions. Ideally, these should be scalable, have already proven their effectiveness, and raise efficiency levels right from the outset. EMO offers direct access to the leading manufacturers and suppliers of customised production solutions in engineering, and showcases advances in metalworking. Furthermore, visitors have the opportunity to talk to industry experts and specialists on the trade fair stands, see presentations, participate in workshops and witness live demonstrations of the latest technologies.

Dr Markus Heering, executive director of EMO organiser VDW (German Machine Tool Builders' Association), said: “EMO is unique among the trade fairs in that is presents the entire metalworking value chain – from machine tools, production systems and AM processes through to precision tools, automation, metrology, quality assurance, software and accessories. The EMO theme ‘Innovate Manufacturing’ is therefore more than just a slogan,it is a call to suppliers and users to be bold in exploiting the possibilities opened up by the new technologies.”

Mechanical and plant engineering is one of the largest customers of production technology worldwide. Accordingly, many of the more than 1,400 EMO exhibitors will be presenting their machines, solutions and services to help propel the future of this sector.

In the spotlight at this year’s show will be automation, digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI). Advancing digitalisation is key to revolutionising engineering, the VDW believes. A decisive factor here is the networking of all machines in the process chain. The opportunity to experience this live is what the organisers say makes EMO unique. Machine tools now come pre-equipped with extensive sensor and monitoring systems and exhibitors will need to dispel trade visitors’ fears about the possible loss of data sovereignty or the threat of cyber attacks.

The exhibiting companies believe it is important to facilitate the transition to data-driven production. Systems that run exclusively on or in individual machines and within a customer’s own network will be on display. It is entirely up to users to decide whether they allow the exchange of data – for example, with external parties, such as the machine manufacturer or partners in or outside the value chain, either now or at some point in the future. Genuine added value is created when maintenance cycles can be predicted, downtimes can be minimised, or data for documenting the carbon footprint within the supply chain can be issued at the touch of a button.

Innovative qualities and competitiveness
Machine learning, a sub-area of AI, opens up a new dimension of self-organising production. This allows companies to respond more flexibly to changes in the market and to individual customer demands. It is a crucial prerequisite for maintaining innovative qualities and competitiveness in the long term.

Digitalisation and automation of production can be combined with the aim of countering the shortage of skilled workers in engineering. Automated assistance systems, for instance, can support machine operators while simultaneously increasing productivity, quality and efficiency. In addition to technical solutions, EMO is also addressing the question of how the training programmes for the next generation of skilled workers can best be adapted to meet the latest requirements regarding technological development, digitalisation and AI.

The changes affecting engineering also include sustainability. More and more nations are taking measures to protect the climate and invest in the green transformation of their industries. In production, there is a stronger focus on consuming resources more sparingly, using energy-efficient machines and production processes, and setting up circular economies for products and materials. As the VDW reports, high visitor interest in this topic was already apparent at EMO 2023. The Sustainability Area at EMO 2025 will provide a focal point for modern solutions aimed at bringing about the sustainable production of the future and for answering visitors’ questions.

The press conference ended with a panel discussion chaired by James Selka, CEO of the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA).