News

April - GROB working with Siemens at the Hanover Fair

As part of our long and successful collaboration with Siemens, GROB had the opportunity at this year’s Hanover Fair to demonstrate at the Siemens stand its G350 standard machine. The expression of confidence displayed by our partner is an honor for our company and staff, while at the same time providing firm evidence of the superb reputation our products enjoy.

Efficiency, productivity and sustainability - basic concepts to which GROB is also committed. As we work hand-in-hand with Siemens, we were able to play a part in the electronics group’s exhibition philosophy by displaying on the Siemens stand one of our G350s. Under the banner of “more efficient, more productive, more sustainable”, Siemens showcased its vision for profitable businesses and the prudent use of resources. The method Siemens chose by way of example was a reinforcing plate for the engine hood on a VW Tiguan within a full process chain. To demonstrate the milling of a punch press for this plate within this chain, Siemens asked us, well before the exhibition started, whether we could make available a G350 equipped with Siemens 840D sl controls and driven by the latest software version. During this process, the part in the size of an engine hood was scaled down at the trade fair so that the press fitted on to our G350.

The positioning of the G350 right in the center of the Siemens stand was from GROB’s viewpoint absolutely perfect. It was situated right in front of the tribune for the half-hour presentations broadcast by the German ZDF TV station with front-men Carsten Schwanke and Ingo Nommsen, at which our machine was also constantly involved. In addition to the presentation, permanently guided tours with moderation via headset were also offered and, as a result, more than 2,000 visitors passed around our machine. Among the VIP guests from the world of politics were Rainer Brüderle, Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, Christian Wulf, Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Uwe Frank, Berlin’s Senator for Economics and Matthias Machnig, Thuringian Economics Minister. And from the world of commerce Prof. Dr. Jochem Heizmann, VW group executive board member with responsibility for production, several VW factory managers and Ulrich Klein, CEO of Feinmechanik-Klein and GROB customer. He kindly supplied us with his G350 for the Hanover Fair.

Altogether, the trade fair was a superb platform from which to project our company’s image … and not just in the standard machine business - even if it wasn’t a trade fair for machine tools. More than 4,800 exhibitors from 64 different countries registered for the Hanover Fair, roughly as many as in the boom year of 2008. But overall, due to the flight ban in place, the number of visitors fell by about 20 percent to 150,000. Because of the problems with the ash cloud, the 2010 Hanover Fair will no doubt be remembered as the “volcano fair”.