MIDEST looks to the industry of the future

Dec 05, 2016

The 46th MIDEST industrial subcontracting show takes place from Tuesday, 6 to Friday, 9 December 2016 at the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, Hall 6. Hosting some 1,603 exhibitors from 39 countries, the organiser anticipates 35,000 trade visitors from 70 countries.

The event is being held within the framework of the ‘Convergence for the Industry of the Future’, and a conference programme and a series of side events focusing on this theme are being organised. These will enable both visitors and exhibitors to strengthen and develop their businesses by discovering the very latest changes, processes and innovations that are revolutionising industry, and also to meet their key current and future partners.

For the first time, this major event, which has the patronage and active support of the President of the Republic François Hollande, will bring together international manufacturers - customers, equipment suppliers and solution providers, subcontractors, research centres - around the crucial ‘Convergence for the Industry of the Future’ challenge. It will help to promote the essential digital and environmental transition of companies by offering a comprehensive overview of France’s know-how, alongside that of leading international specialists.

Some 20 lectures will be given at the show and most will deal with aspects of the industry of the future, whether it be on ways customers and subcontractors might cooperate, the central challenge of employment and training, emerging technologies such as additive manufacturing, the ‘Internet of Things’ or augmented reality, the essential problems of maintenance and risk prevention.

The economic angle will also be covered extensively, with practical discussions about how to optimise competitiveness and employment tax rebates, offshoring and onshoring, how to build an ideal subcontractor panel, as well as collaboration between the latter and their customers. Finally, leading industry sectors, such as motor vehicles, aerospace, railways and medical, will be subjects of special focus.

Organisations and companies giving talks include Médiation Interentreprises (the company mediation service), bpifrance, the OFCE (French economic observatory), CCI France (French Chambers of Commerce and Industry), the Institut national de la propriété intellectuelle (the French intellectual property institute), the Fédération des Industries Mécaniques (the Mechanical Engineering Federation), the UIMM (the union of metal industries and trades), the Fédération des Industries Ferroviaires (the railway manufacturers’ federation), the Association Nationale des Apprentis de France (the French apprentices’ association), the INRS (health and safety at work), the Centre National RFID (the French RFID centre), design offices such as AgileBuyer and AT Kearney, Renault-Nissan, Sanofi, the SNCF, Lectra, AGS Fusion, Axon’Cable, National Instruments, Randstad…

Several events are also designed to deliver real insight into the industry of the future. In particular, MIDEST will be hosting an innovation show focusing on rapid prototyping, a fablab, a meeting space organised by the Usine IO hardware prototyping workshop. INRIA will use Kinect sensors to monitor visitors so that they can see how they perform when assembling a car seat.

The ‘MAJOR Destination Plastics’ lorry will allow visitors to discover the equipment that is needed and to view demonstrations of the sector’s three leading technologies. In partnership with the IPC, the show will also stage France’s first competition for brazing by hand. It will be held in the Electrotechnologies Village. Randstad will offer access to a piece of high performance software for job and candidate search and it will organise an office manned by ‘Cadres pour l’entreprise’, an association that helps senior executives to find a job, as well as panels with offers of jobs, internships and sandwich courses. Finally, the Industrial Subcontracting Awards are back again and will highlight outstanding achievements.

The president of MIDEST 2016 and 2017 will be Bruno Didier, chairman of Promofiltres, a company that specialises in industrial filtration. He is heavily involved in industry, as chairman of the Ile-de-France Mechanical Engineering Committee, deputy chairman for Industry of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Department 95, and deputy treasurer of the Ile de France Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He succeeds Patrick Munini.

Source: Machinery