Deburring and the production of precision surfaces are just one area of surface technology. For quality and cost reasons, however, this is increasingly becoming the focus of manufacturing companies. The current tasks and projects that the 1,214 visitors - around ten percent more than in 2021 - brought with them to this year's DeburringEXPO from October 10 to 12 impressively confirm this. The proportion of international visitors was 20 percent, with 18 countries represented. The strongest visitor nations after Germany were Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Slovenia. "More important than the pure figures is that participating in the trade fair was worthwhile for the exhibiting companies," says Hartmut Herdin, Managing Director of the private trade fair company fairXperts GmbH & Co. The fact that the majority of exhibitors are expecting good follow-up business is also evident from the comments made by Steffen Hedrich, Managing Director of Kempf GmbH: "Practically every visitor to DeburringEXPO comes to the trade fair with a current problem for which they are looking for a solution. That's why the discussions quickly become in-depth. We also presented a world first for deburring tasks where very high demands are placed on the chamfer quality and met with a much better response than I would have expected in advance. We are already certain that we will be exhibiting again in 2025." The fact that the DeburringEXPO was so focused was due to the high proportion of trade visitors. The most strongly represented sectors included mechanical and plant engineering, metalworking and metal processing, medical and pharmaceutical technology, tool and mold making, precision mechanics and optics, the automotive industry and aerospace technology. Dieter Münz, Managing Director of Ultratec Innovation GmbH, was also extremely satisfied with the trade fair: "DeburringEXPO is the most important trade fair for us. Although there is a smaller audience here than at the major metalworking trade fairs, the visitors all come with a specific task in mind. The success rate for good follow-up business is therefore significantly higher here than at other trade fairs." David Bartels, Laboratory Manager at Höckh Metall-Reinigungsanlagen GmbH, also draws a positive balance: "Deburring is one of the main topics at DeburringEXPO and cleaning is an upstream or downstream production step. The joint trade fair appearance with SGM has resulted in synergies that have enabled us to make more interesting contacts than at previous events, including numerous new contacts." Patrick Taschek, Sales and Project Engineer at Rösler Oberflächentechnik GmbH, reports on very detailed discussions and inquiries: "During the three days of the trade fair, we were visited by existing customers with whom we were able to discuss new projects. On the other hand, we were able to generate good new contacts. The discussions often focused on reducing manual processes, simplifying machining processes and automating them."
Trends and knowledge transfer
Jan-Niklas Merkel from Technical Sales at SHL AG also found that the trend towards more automation, which has been reinforced not least by the shortage of skilled workers, was a dominant theme at this year's DeburringEXPO: "The visitors came from various metalworking industries with different deburring tasks and the production of precision surfaces. We noticed that the requirements for automation solutions are increasing and the demands on the degree of automation are becoming ever higher." According to the survey, the leading trade fair also met the expectations of the visitors. This was certainly due in no small part to the numerous new and further developments presented, making the trade fair a recommended information and procurement platform. The DeburringEXPO specialist forum has established itself over the years as a sought-after source of knowledge. A good 500 participants attended the simultaneously translated presentations this time. For over 30 percent of visitors, the lecture program was the deciding factor for the day of their visit to the trade fair. The next DeburringExpo will take place from October 14 to 16, 2025.