The Association For Manufacturing Technology has announced that IMTS 2006 completed an excellent eight-day event in Chicago. More than 91,000 attendees poured into the 26th machine tools exposition at Chicago’s McCormick Place September 6-13, 2006 from over 40 countries to explore innovative technologies and emerging trends. The final tally represents more than a 6-percent increase in registrants over 2004. IMTS, held every even numbered year, boasted more than 1,288 exhibitors on over 1.1 million square feet of floor space.
“The tremendous response affirms that IMTS continues to offer solid value to industry professionals,” says John B. Byrd III, AMT president. “We are very pleased with the high turnout, which is an extremely optimistic sign of the times in a growing international marketplace. Manufacturers coming to the show from around the world clearly understand that modernizing industrial equipment and processes lay the groundwork for growth.”
According to U.S. Manufacturing Technology Consumption (USMTC), a joint statistical program of AMT and the American Machine Tools Distributors’ Association, manufacturing technology consumption is up 24.4 percent compared to 2005.
Thousands of visitors, from CEOs to manufacturing engineers, shopped the show floor. “We rolled out new technology, applications and had so much booth traffic,” says Stephen R. Light, IMTS exhibitor and president of Flow International Corporation. “We set an all-time bookings record, and our phones continue to ring.”
“AMT’s planning and execution of the show were outstanding,” he adds. “They helped set the stage for our success with pre-show training and partnering with us to optimize our show strategy to make the exposition more productive. Our results clearly indicate there is no place better to showcase your products and services than IMTS.”
According to Peter R. Eelman, AMT vice president of exhibitions, “Overall, IMTS 2006 was a very productive show for both visitors and exhibitors. The lift in attendance clearly shows visitors understand the key to the future is productivity and the interest in upgrading facilities is growing rapidly. Visitors came with an agenda to improve their operations and they found a tremendous variety of resources to do just that.”
IMTS shifts to a new schedule in 2008, becoming a six-day event and starting one week after Labor Day, September 8-13, 2008, in the expanded McCormick Place West opening fall 2007. “The show will now encompass a single week in 2008, and we’re enthusiastic about the future of manufacturing and IMTS,” Eelman says. “An enormous amount of strategic thinking, talent, and energy went into making IMTS 2006 a huge success. We’re now charting the path to even greater excellence in serving the industry for the years ahead.”
To learn more go to [www.imts.com].
