LogiMAT – the International Trade Show for Distribution, Materials Handling, and Information Flow – is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and that’s “cause for a small celebration,” says director Peter Kazander, Managing Director of EUREXPO Messe- und Kongress-GmbH in Munich. “LogiMAT has been shaped by a decade and a half of technological developments – a period of rapid disruptions that has seen a virtually unprecedented surge in the role of intralogistics.”
Developments in information and communications technology, sensor technology, image acquisition, automation, and robotics in particular now represent a norm that only few could imagine when LogiMAT debuted in 2003. “The first LogiMAT at Stuttgart’s old convention center in Killesberg featured a heated debate about the introduction of RFID,” recalls Professor Michael ten Hompel, Managing Institute Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML). “The internet of things and Industry 4.0 were still just distant visions back then. Today, we hold in our hands the technology to realize the dreams of that era.” LogiMAT has consistently followed this trend over the years, notes Dr. ten Hompel. “And what’s more, it has become a platform for this transformation.”
