Hannover Messe: It’s All Ball Bearings

Picture above courtesy of Siemens PLM Germany on Twitter.

Day 1 at Hannover Messe 2011 is in the books and what a day it was.  I haven’t been at the fair since 2007, right before I became part of the Siemens family (I almost got to come last year on accident since the #ashcloud kept most of the people who were planning to come from being here and I was already in Germany, but that is another story).  A lot has changed since then, at least for me and my ability to take it all in and make some sense of the massive display of industrial technology that spans the multiple halls and show floors.



Stay tuned to some PLM-specific news and info tomorrow. Today I will focus on what else caught my eye.  And what better way to do that than share a few videos I took while walking around the show floor.

First up is a video of one display in the Siemens booth in Hall 9 that really caught my eye.  In this video you see a scanning system connected to a software solution that gives real time readouts on the gaps in door panels.  This is something that gets simulated a lot, but I have never seen it verified on physical product so cleanly.



Next up is a little montage of various robots that various vendors brought with them to the fair this year (excuse my editing skills, but all I had was iMovie and 15 minutes to put a few different clips together).  They are doing all sorts of jobs, from cutting cheese to stacking tires.



The common thread that ties both of these videos together is integration.  The industrial automation space is getting more and more integrated, from the mechanical to the electrical and even to the software.  Its hard to see at first, but look a little deeper and its every where you look.  Tune in tomorrow for an post with a little more personal tech slant.

For more from the event, check out the Siemens social media newsroom.