Great expectations for ACHEMA 2018

ACHEMA 2018 is entering the home stretch: On 11 June 2018, the doors of the exhibition and presentation halls will open. Around 3,800 exhibitors and 167,000 participants from more than 100 countries will turn Frankfurt once again into the global centre of the process industries. ACHEMA has gained a positive momentum from the optimistic near-term outlook of its core industries despite all imponderabilia. The organisers expect that ACHEMA will benefit from these effects and might even slightly surpass the numbers of former events.

“VDMA Process plant and equipment association expects respectable increase for 2017” – “Suppliers of process automation optimistic for 2018” – “Further strong growth of the chemical industry in 2018” – The last weeks have been characterized by positive news from the ACHEMA industries. Thus the organisers are going into the last preparations with optimism. “We are usually reluctant about forecasts”, said Dr. Thomas Scheuring, CEO of DECHEMA Ausstellungs-GmbH. “However, we see significant growth in some exhibition fields such as automation, pharmaceutical, packaging and storage technologies, but also in the mechanical processes group, and this certainly gives reason to positive expectations.”

At the ACHEMA Press Preview mid-March it became apparent that all industries and exhibition groups are preoccupied with the “megatrend” digitalisation, whether it’s laboratory equipment, plant engineering or packaging and logistics. Exhibitors have many innovations up their sleeve that are based on digital methods: Thanks to digital interfaces, pumps can be integrated via “plug and play” into a plant and monitor themselves. Control and operation centres are designed to redefine the collaboration between humans and machines. Especially the focal topics “Flexible production” and “Chemicals and pharma logistics” benefit from this trend as modular plants or integrated supply chains are inconceivable without data integration.

In addition, “conventional” topics such as components for increased process efficiency or new materials are also on the agenda of companies offering products and technologies for the chemical, pharma and food industry. And the focal topic “Biotech for Chemistry” does not only concern biopharmaceutical producers, but also “classical” players in the chemical industry: Increasingly they combine chemical and biotechnological steps especially in the production of fine chemicals.