EMO Hannover 2007 gave the international machine tool sector an enormous shot in the arm. According to the official exhibitor survey, this year's EMO show generated an order volume of 4 billion euros. More than half of all exhibitors were anticipating a positive influence on subsequent German and European sales.

Other important indicators for the leading role enjoyed by EMO Hannover were also up, including the percentage of visitors from outside Germany. Over 37% of trade visitors came from abroad, from a total of 80 different nations. Commensurate with the high level of European demand for machine tools, the number of visitors from Western Europe was up sharply, particularly from Switzerland, France, Italy, Sweden and Austria. The biggest contingents of visitors from overseas were from India and the United States.

As the leading innovations forum for the metalworking industry, EMO Hannover 2007 showcased a wide variety of innovations which are now market-ready following their unveiling at the previous event. One problem which was addressed in a number of new solutions this year involved the reduction of incidental time. Many machine tool manufacturers have for example considerably reduced the time required for tool changing or now provide advance simulations of the setup procedure, considerably reducing machine overheads as a result.

And the integration of control systems into the manufacturing process was another hot topic at this year's show. This year machine tool manufacturers teamed up with software providers to present brand new approaches to enhancing customer productivity by optimizing the production process in terms of criteria such as production time or surface quality.

Meanwhile the international technical symposium entitled "Intelligent Lightweight Design" focused on a key new trend: Leading experts discussed the different aspects of innovative, lightweight design from the standpoint of the customer as well as providers of production equipment.