Exhibitors Panel announces the new dates:
SPS ITALIA in Parma from 24th to 26th May 2011!

Donald Wich, Managing Director of Messe Frankfurt Italia, announced the new dates of SPS/IPC/Drives Italia during a press conference that was attended by several representatives of the industry, of the academic world and of the specialist press.

Initially scheduled for late 2010, SPS/IPC/Drives Italia will be held in Fiere di Parma on 24 - 26 May 2011 to meet the demands of the industrial automation market that needs two complementary events to cover both the European and neighbouring markets all year round, namely SPS Nuremberg in November and SPS Italia in Parma in May.

Some authoritative opinions on the birth of the project and on its shift to the month of May.

Andrea Maffioli, Industrial Automation Systems Manager, Industry Division, Siemens, declared: “SPS/IPC/Drives Italia is the trade fair that offers us the highest visibility for our products and, especially, for our solutions. SPS/IPC/Drives Italia will endow trade fairs held in Italy with specialist features. We shall at last be able to discuss automation issues once more in a more specialist manner, and in a central location such as Parma. We have now abandoned other more general trade fairs. Therefore the change of dates covers a gap in the trade fair schedule. Moreover, May is a favourable month both for the corporate budget of industrial automation manufacturers - in most cases starting in January or in April - and for clients who, having reached the peak of their financial year, seek new options to differentiate themselves.”

Roberto Maietti, Chairman and Executive Advisor, OMRON Europe, and President of ANIE-ASSOAUTOMAZIONE said: “Italy lacked a powerful trade fair. SPS/IPC/Drives Italia has been created at a highly favourable time because our message, even as Assoautomazione, needs to be conveyed better. It was becoming difficult to justify trade fairs as the convergence of what we wanted to show and what visitors expected. I think that SPS/IPC/Drives Italia mirrors our need to enhance verticalization of the message, and it will help us improve the dialogue with corporate technicians through an event focused on presenting products and, especially, applications and solutions. I expect this trade fair to shift from 'showcase' to 'workshop’, while maintaining both traits.”

Andrea Bianchi, Managing Director of Heidenhain Italiana agrees with the above: “We were one of the first companies to join the Exhibitors Panel of SPS/IPC/Drives Italia because we believed from the onset in the feasibility of creating a “powerful” trade fair for the automation industry in Italy, as the country needs a trade fair that can ensure a preferential framework for information exchange and technological updates, an event designed to offer concrete and exhaustive answers to the demands of automation. SPS/IPC/Drives Italia has what it takes to become the landmark for all actors on the scene of industrial automation in our country too, as already occurred in Germany. The change of date that schedules the Italian event six months after the German one ensures that it will easily reach all the protagonists of the sector.”

The birth of SPS/IPC/Drives Italia has even met with the favour of machine manufacturers and the academic world.

Antonio Mosca, Electronic Technical Department Manager, OCME, declared his satisfaction as follows:“I find it very useful that such an important trade fair for the automation industry - SPS/IPC/Drives Italia - is held in Parma. The choice of location reveals the market’s special focus on an area in which leading OEMs, both European and worldwide, daily use and test ultimate technological solutions, thus contributing towards improvements and encouraging research to develop products increasingly targeted at the final user.I believe in cooperation between OEMs, constructors and the university framework. It is remarkable that SPS/IPC/Drives Italia, which is scheduled to be held in Parma, will make ample room for representatives from various fields to encourage cooperation and development that will enable Italy to maintain and, if possible, to improve its leading position in automatic packaging machines.”

To quote Alessandra Flammini, Tenured Professor at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia: “Trade fairs are becoming important opportunities for information exchange between companies and between companies and the university framework. Today universities are changing their attitude towards applied research, and we have realised that the challenge of internationalization is facilitated if there is synergic cooperation between university research and industrial research. In this new scenario, SPS/IPC/Drives Italia could become a key point of convergence between these two worlds that increasingly need to interact.”

Hence the appointment for the world of automation is at SPS/IPC/Drives Italia, Fiere di Parma on 24 - 26 May 2011.