These days, it should come as no surprise that everyone at AMT is focused on ensuring IMTS 2024 will provide an unparalleled opportunity for attendees to gain firsthand access to the latest in manufacturing technology and the people developing and providing it. Websites are great when it comes to providing photos, videos, and specs about machine tools, robots, additive systems, software, and other equipment, but talking to the people who brought it to market is invaluable.
Needless to say, when you’re orchestrating something that covers more than 1.2 million square feet of floor space that is being taken in by tens of thousands of people from around the world, you’ve got to focus on not just simply doing it right but doing it in a way that shows people – attendees and exhibitors – that the time, effort, and money they’ve invested in being at IMTS have a measurable return.
Achieving the benefits IMTS provides is something that I’ve been thinking about because the opportunities are as important as the show is big. So, how do you gain these benefits in an efficient manner?
I’ve attended IMTS since 1978. My first visit was at age 18. I’d been apprenticing at my grandfather’s tool and die company since I was 15. During my freshman year at college, my grandfather brought me to IMTS with him. Not only was I blown away by seeing all the machines and equipment I had been working with in one place – and even more that I hadn’t – but I had the benefit of seeing how my grandfather attended the show.
He already knew what equipment he was interested in acquiring, so, armed with a pocket full of blank purchase orders, he visited the booths of those companies and talked to their exhibitors, evaluating, comparing, and deciding what he needed. Before he left Chicago, many of the purchase orders would be filled out.
And he also walked down every aisle at the show. Every aisle. I am not exaggerating.
When I asked him why he was doing that – after all, he knew what he needed for the company – he explained that it allowed him to see things that he might be able to use in one of his shops, whether it was how chips were being evacuated or how tooling was being deployed.
Later in my career, when I became a leader of a company, I would go to IMTS both to find equipment that we needed right then and equipment that might be advantageous for us in the future.
Now I know that sometimes there is a tendency to think that going solo to an event like IMTS is more “cost effective,” but I learned right away that that’s a false economy. This is because if I saw something that I thought we needed, I would have to go back and sell the idea to other people. That’s not only not easy, but I could have also been wrong about our needs.
So, I would take a team to IMTS, and we would divide into two groups. One group would look for the company’s current needs. The other would check out the machines, software, and tooling that might be useful to us in the future. The team would consist of not only management but toolmakers and mold makers – people who use the equipment. Who would know better than them?
Given the breadth of the show, we would look at pre-show coverage in trade magazines and promotional materials from exhibitors to determine beforehand which companies we needed to set up appointments with to make our time more efficient.
Another thing that we did before the show was look at the conference sessions. This was particularly important when it came to technologies that we thought might work to our advantage but weren’t sure about. Attending presentations given by the people who developed or used the technology provided us with clarity on whether that was something we needed to pursue.
At the end of each day, before we’d go to dinner, we would discuss what we each saw. This often led to adjustments to our agendas because someone would inevitably discover something that we needed to explore. That’s what makes IMTS great: a wide breadth of technologies – and access to the knowledgeable people behind them.
When we would leave the show, there was a lot more buy-in and support from staff representing various functions than if just a couple of us from management attended.
I also attended IMTS as an exhibitor, and I worked to make sure that we were presented in the most effective way possible to facilitate connecting with the people who visited our display.
While I’ve been attending IMTS in my position at AMT since 2010 and seen tremendous advances, that first IMTS with my grandfather left an indelible mark on me. At that point in my life, I could have gone in plenty of different directions, but seeing that expansive display of manufacturing technology resonated with me then and continues to this very day.
Although my grandfather’s walk of each and every aisle seemed a bit excessive to me as an 18-year-old, it is something that I now make sure to do whenever I attend a trade show. IMTS 2024 will be exceptional, but there will be no exception to the miles I will walk before it closes.
To read the rest of the IMTS Issue of MT Magazine, click here.
