Intelligent Automation

A global hub of the machinery industry, Taiwan is stepping up efforts to develop innovative smart manufacturing technologies. From May 20-24 this year, about 30,000 visitors, including buyers from Asia, Europe and the U.S., flocked to the Commercial Exhibition Center in Taichung City, central Taiwan for the Automatic Machinery and Intelligent Manufacturing Exhibition. The trade show has been staged annually in Taichung for more than three decades, though this marked the first time that intelligent manufacturing was used in the title of the event. Organizer Commercial Times, one of the country's two major financial newspapers, opted to alter the name of the show to highlight the growing focus on this field in the nation's globally competitive machinery sector. "This is the 32nd edition of our machinery show in Taichung. But unlike previous events, this year's exhibition features intelligent machines to reflect the current trend in manufacturing systems development," Chen Kuo-wei (???), president of Commercial Times, said at the opening ceremony of the five-day event, which generated business deals totaling about NT 300 million (US 9.2 million).