Due to the high amount of incoming orders from within Germany and abroad, the German association for mechanical and plant engineering (VDMA) is forecasting a new record turnover amounting to 8.9 billion Euros in 2008. This would correspond to a growth of 9%. Already in 2007 turnover in Germany increased by 13% to 8.2 billion Euros in this field.
According to VDMA, orders are not just coming from the car manufacturing industry, but also from the food and beverages industry, from the pharmaceutical industry and medical engineering. Even the photovoltaics industry counts on robotics and automation.
The year 2007 was particularly successful for robotics manufacturers the turnover of which grew by 20% to 2.1 billion Euros. Companies from all lines of industry increased investment in the productivity of their plants in order to remain competitive on a global scale and to meet high domestic demand and that from abroad.
“The most important factor for the strong growth in Germany is car manufacturers which invested a lot and bought 5,130 robots. The total number of robots sold in Germany amounted to 14,700 which is 29% more than in 2007 and the biggest number of robots ever sold since the invention of robots”, says Dr. Norbert Stein, who is member of the board of managing directors of VDMA robotics + automation, at the presentation of these impressive figure in the run-up to the “Automatica” fair in Munich.
Apart from the strong increase in robots turnover was also driven by sales in system solutions. According to VDMA estimates, this trend of automisation is set to continue and reach a growth rate of 12% in the year 2008.
The international „Automatica“ trade fair for industrial picture processing, assembly techniques, handling engineering and robotics will take place from June 10th to 13th in Munich. 850 international exhibitors will demonstrate the latest and future developments on automation in production.
More information is provided by the website of the trade fair. 