Before the trade fair K 2010 in Düsseldorf

Preview K 2010 - Statement by Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, President and CEO, Messe Düsseldorf GmbH. K 2010 will be held from 27 October to 3 November 2010. This trade fair is the biggest worldwide event for plastics industry.

Plastics and rubber are an indispensable part of everyday life. Cars, aircraft, computers, telephones, televisions, the construction industry, the sport and leisure sector and, last but not least, packagings are no longer conceivable without plastics. Plastics also make decisive contributions in the areas of food and hygiene, and in modern medicine.

Despite the wide distribution of these materials, the plastics industry is still relatively young, and is correspondingly dynamic and innovative. The image of the sector is characterised by new products, new processes and new applications, but also by increasingly keen competition. Raw materials producers, processors, manufacturers of plastics and rubber processing machinery, and all users need an international flagship trade fair - a world-class information and communications forum - as a solid basis for commercial decisions. This flagship trade fair is K Düsseldorf.

The successful partnership between the plastics and rubber industry and Messe Düsseldorf has existed since 1952. And despite the unsettled global economy, companies from all continents have high hopes of K 2010. This is clearly reflected in the registration figures: all 19 available trade fair halls are fully booked, and not a single company of note is absent from the list of exhibitors. About 3,000 companies will be present at the flagship trade fair, which will be held from 27 October to 3 November 2010. In all, the net exhibition area will again exceed 160,000 square metres.

The lively interest shows that exhibitors are convinced of the necessity to be present at the sector’s largest marketplace - even, or especially, in difficult times. This will certainly also be true of the 200,000 trade visitors from around the world who are expected to attend K 2010 in Düsseldorf. Everyone who is anyone in the plastics and rubber industry will take advantage of this outstanding opportunity to become acquainted with the latest products on the world market and the pioneering trends. This opportunity is available only once every three years - at K Düsseldorf.

The clearly structured layout will enable visitors to K 2010 to find their way around easily despite its size, so that they can find the information they need for their professional interests without engaging in tedious searches or having to take detours:

• Manufacturers of machinery and equipment are traditionally the largest group of exhibitors at K, and will occupy halls 1 to 4 and 9 to 17, which account for about two thirds of the total exhibition area
• Suppliers of raw materials, semi-finished products and technical parts are assigned halls 5 to 8a. Hall 8b, at the interface between the thematic exhibition zones, will house, among other things, the joint presentation by the Chinese industry, and will include exhibits from all categories.
• The exhibitors’ ranges will be supplemented by future-oriented elements, which will be dealt with in the special review “Visions in Polymers”. In daily panel discussions, top academics and experienced users will address questions such as what our daily lives will look like 20 years from now, how plastics can contribute to solving major problems, and which potential applications that are now viewed as visionary will become reality within the next two decades. On the basis of examples from different areas of life, speakers will explain which development trends can be discerned, and which innovations the industry has in its pipelines. Special emphasis will be placed on the themes of energy efficiency and resource conservation.

The special review is being organised by the German Plastics Association under the auspices of PlasticsEurope Deutschland e.V. and Messe Düsseldorf.

No other trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry offers such a large and varied array of ideas and products as K 2010 does. The internationality of the exhibitors guarantees that all segments will be represented at world market level. Companies from every continent have signed up to present their innovations. Suppliers from Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and the USA will again be especially strongly represented, as will Asian manufacturers from China, Taiwan and India. They include not only the global market leaders but also numerous interesting newcomers.

All these companies are already working hard to prepare for K 2010, as every exhibitor wants to present itself in the best light at the sector’s most important trade fair. In this case, “in the best light” means “with attractive innovations”. Innovations are the alpha and omega of competition, and know-how gives its possessors a crucial edge in the fight for markets and market shares. The question of how to achieve success in the face of fierce international competition can be answered briefly and succinctly: through innovative products and technologies, which offer real benefits to customers.

It would certainly be presumptuous to claim that K Düsseldorf, with its three-year cycle, is the only forum at which new technologies are presented. It is indisputable, however, that K is the only trade fair worldwide that offers such an abundance of innovations. The innovations clearly focus on delivering benefits and meeting customer needs. Customers of machinery manufacturers and raw materials producers have been affected just as much by the consequences of the crisis as their suppliers. They are also desperately seeking solutions that will help them to manufacture and sell their products more efficiently, at lower cost, using less energy and materials, and if possible with improved properties. Each solution, each further development, is very welcome.

This applies not only to manufacturers of plastics and rubber products. Industrial end users appreciate K equally highly and visit it in order to take home new ideas for their sector and their products. The exhibitors, in turn, target this customer group. Almost half of the companies that participate at K aim their products and services directly at industrial users of semi-finished products and technical parts.

K has therefore become the main information forum for developers, designers and manufacturing experts from numerous industrial sectors. First among these is the automotive industry. About 40 percent of all exhibitors that present products and services for industrial users at K offer innovations for this particular industry. One third present innovations for medical technology, then come electrical engineering and electronics, transport, packaging and logistics, and the consumer goods industry.

The exhibitors’ range of innovations make K 2010 the sector’s globally most important business forum. In every exhibition area, the range will include everything from standard to high-tech solutions, from proven processes to visionary strategies. Companies that work with plastics and rubber, or want to offer customers more attractive products, or are planning new investments, or would like to see what the competition is doing all know that K is a must if they are to strengthen or expand their position in the market.

To simplify the task of navigating among the wealth of new developments, a new tool is currently being created to show the direct routes to all the highlights. Known as the Innovation Compass, it will allow visitors to precisely plan their visit to K 2010 so that they can make the most of the available time.

The Innovation Compass will be available online about six weeks before the start of K 2010. This tool offers a search matrix for innovations that can bring major improvements or even fundamental changes, thus making it possible to generate real competitive advantages.

A circle of experts including top-ranking academics and prominent representatives of the K Exhibitors Council has defined a series of main topics that will have a decisive impact on market trends over the next few years.

For raw materials and auxiliaries these are: optimisation of standard plastics and rubber, plastics made from renewable resources, modification of plastics and rubbers with nanoscale particles, functionalised plastics, components and surfaces, plastics and rubber for lightweight structures, incl. foams, fibre composites and their processing, materials/hybrids.

The machinery and equipment segment covers the following: faster manufacturing processes, increased throughput, faster product changeover times, integrated manufacturing processes, optimisation of subprocesses, energy efficiency, materials efficiency.

For inclusion in the Innovation Compass, exhibitors must document their innovation claim. The provided explanation of the innovation and the link to the exhibitor’s home page allow visitors to judge for themselves, even before the trade fair, which innovations will be of most interest to them.

Most trade visitors to K Düsseldorf come in order to acquire information about trends and innovations. Others come to foster existing business relationships and establish new ones, to monitor the competition, to gather information about systems and applications, and to compare prices and conditions. At the last K in 2007, a large number of experts from a total of 86 countries came with concrete purchasing intentions.

The trade visitors included a considerable proportion of top managers: 59 percent indicated that they played a crucial or participatory role in investment decision-making in their companies, while 23 percent stated that they were involved in an advisory capacity.

These experts rated the information they obtained at the trade fair for their business purposes extremely favourably. The survey carried out during K 2007 indicates clearly that the visitors to the trade fair were very impressed by the abundance of knowledge, new developments and technical solutions. The visitors’ interest in the range of exhibits was as follows: 67 percent were interested in machinery and equipment for the plastics and rubber industry, 41 percent in raw materials and auxiliaries, 27 percent in semi-finished products and technical parts, and 16 percent in services. Finally, more than 90 percent of the visitors were satisfied with the ranges in all these areas.