The EPICENTRE

A legendary event in the world of construction equipment, Bauma is the largest tradeshow in the world. After a delay and other challenges associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, Bauma 2022 will happen this month in Munich!

Equipment Times raises the curtain to this ‘Bauma Munich 2022’ edition which looks into the global market outlook, key products on display, continent drawing more demand, export market, after-sales initiatives, challenges, and expectations from Bauma.

The Bauma trade show in Munich is a worldwide big deal every three years in Munich, Germany.

In 2019, the show attracted a record 620,000 visitors. This year the show could eclipse that number, or attendance could be down because of a number of challenges caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic. The show is set for October 24-30 at the Messe München trade-fair center in Munich.

History of Bauma…

The very first Bauma was held in 1954 as part of the “Baumusterschau” at Theresienhöhe in Munich. It was a fully German exhibition with some 58 construction equipment manufacturers showing their products. In 1956, the trade show, dubbed “Bauma,” was held again, this time with twice as much exhibitor space and twice as many visitors. The second iteration of the show attracted 13 exhibitors from abroad.

In 1958, due to tremendous growth, the show was relocated to a former airport site known as Oberwiesenfeld. That year the show had 450 exhibitors. According to Wikipedia, in 1967, “Bauma was transferred from private ownership to Messe München’s portfolio, and in 1969, the first Bauma was organized under the leadership of Messe München.” The show continued to grow and then it got another huge boost.

The Olympic Games were awarded to Munich, and the region became the largest construction site in Europe. Olympic Park was built at Oberwiesenfeld. Bauma returned to Theresienhöhe, where it remained for several decades. In 1998, the trade fair company moved from Theresienhöhe to Munich-Riem.

A global stage

Today Bauma presents a comprehensive platform for construction machinery, building materials machinery, mining machinery, construction vehicles and construction equipment. The 2022 show features 200,000 square meters of hall space, 414,000 square meters of outdoor space and 3,000 exhibitors from 58 countries. The focus of the show will be digitalization and sustainability. Key words and phrases this year will include zero emissions, digital construction, autonomous machinery and methods and materials of tomorrow, reports American Cranes and Transport.

Cranes, rigging gear, specialized lifting equipment and specialized transportation vehicles are an impressive part of this global tradeshow. The skies over Bauma are filled with crane booms from almost every crane manufacturer in the world.

Bauma is usually held in April every three years, but this year the show was postponed until October 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. By pushing the show to October, and due to other issues such as supply chain challenges, inflation and rising costs and the fact that ConExpo is just six months after Bauma, some OEMs made the decision to skip one show or the other. Several U.S. companies have pulled out of Bauma, most notably in the crane sector are smaller U.S.-centric manufacturers that do not have a huge global reach.

While the 2022 show will be at a different time and the exhibitor list is not the same as normal, the show is expected to continue as a legendary event in the construction equipment industry. As always, there is a packed schedule with plenty to see and do across the week and a comprehensive support programme in place to maximise everyone’s time at the show.

Lectures and discussions

The Bauma Forum, with lectures, presentations and panel discussions, will be found in the Bauma Innovation Hall LAB0. The forum programme will focus on a different trending key topic of Bauma each day.

This year’s key themes are “Construction methods and materials of tomorrow”, “Mining – sustainable, efficient and reliable”, “The road to zero emissions”, “Way to autonomous machines”, and “Digital construction site”.

Winners in the five categories of the Bauma Innovation Award 2022 will also be presented in the forum on 24 October. With this prize, the VDMA (Mechanical Engineering Industry Association), Messe München and the top associations of the German construction industry will honour research and development teams from companies and universities that are bringing technology and innovation to the forefront of the construction, building materials and mining industry.

Science and innovation

Next to the forum will be the Science Hub.

In this area, ten universities and scientific institutes will be on hand to provide information on the latest status of their research with Bauma’s topic of the day providing structure.

Another segment included in this year’s show is the revitalised Start-up Area – found in the Innovation Hall in the Internationales Congress Centre (ICM) – where promising young companies can present themselves to a specialist audience. The area provides innovative entrepreneurs with the opportunity to present their latest solutions in line with this year’s main themes of bauma.

Total immersion tech

Back in 2019, the VDMA – the largest association of the German Construction Industry – founded the “Machines in Construction 4.0” (MiC 4.0) working group. At this year’s MiC 4.0 stand in LAB0 Innovation Hall, visitors will be able to see a demonstration of the new interface in action. The virtual reality experience received positive feedback in 2019 and this year the focus will be on the digitalisation of construction sites.

Visitors are said to be able to immerse themselves in the construction sites of today and of tomorrow and experience the interactions between people and machines for themselves in the digital space. The show will also focus on career prospects for young people with the THINK BIG! initiative run by the VDMA and Messe München.

In the ICM, companies will present“ Technology up close” with a large workshop show, hands-on activities, games and information about a future career in the industry. Visitors will be given the opportunity to offset their CO₂ footprint at the trade fair with a compensation premium of €5.

This is then invested in three climate protection projects that meet the Gold Standard, Plan Vivo standards and will attempt to make a positive contribution to sustainable development, both locally and regionally. While some big names will be missing from this year’s Bauma, there will be no shortage of impressive & innovative machinery, products, technology and services on show.

Bauma’s organisers say the sell-out show will run across 200,000m2 of indoor space and around 400,000m2 outdoor space – and more than 3,000 companies from some 60 countries will be exhibiting. With that in mind, Construction Europe, as usual, will do its best to highlight the must-see stands and products.

The world reacts…

Javier Militino, Marketing Manager, Comansa, said, “After more than 3 years of gap in international tradeshow, we are looking forward to meeting customers, competitors like never before. Trending topics as digitization, servitization are on the Comansa table to discuss during the show. We have been working hard on these and other issues to offer added value service to our customers.”

Kieran Hegarty, President, Terex Corporation, said, “We are very positive about India over the long term. And that is why we continue to expand our Hosur campus. If you look across Material Processing (MP) division, we have a very broad portfolio where we are enjoying a high market share in our traditional markets like Europe, Australia & North America. But we have had a very positive experience in India with our equipment over the years. They were one of our market leaders and we just want to bring the best of our portfolio as believe that for us to be successful in India, we need to be manufacturing local and we need to support local. So, with our widespread products, we are very successful in India and the rest of the world.”

Jens Heinrich, Head of Marketing International-Head of Training, Schwing Stetter, said, “At this year’s bauma, SCHWING-Stetter will be showing a total of 3 new truck-mounted concrete pumps, two new truck mixer concrete pumps, two new truck mixers, solutions from the field of e-mobility and the digital construction site 4.0 in the outdoor area covering more than 2500 m2. Truck-mounted concrete pump S 56 SXF, VECTOR II control system presented for the first time, DynaRig – the new support system, Lightest Stetter truck mixer on the market, Truck mixer concrete pumps FBP 25/28, S 36 X RaZor – 5-bend/RZ folding, S 51 SX, AM9/8 FED UltraEco – Fully electric truck mixer body, Eco Power System – Zero Emission, Mixing plant with MC 500 – the process chain in view and others.”

According to Dimitrov Krishnan, Managing Director, Volvo CE India, said, “At Volvo CE, the passion to enhance customer experience with our products is matched by our passion to preserve the environment we live in. This translates into an unending series of sustainable innovations across our equipment range and manifests in unique features to distinguish the brand from the rest. For instance, the newly introduced Volvo EC550E excavator features Independent Metering Valve Technology (IMVT), a novel electro-hydraulic system facilitating engine/pump optimisation. It helps customers save on fuel costs with no loss in productivity. The Volvo EC 300DL Block Handler and EC 480D Excavator are two more examples with features that deliver cutting edge advantage in quarry and mining applications.”

Arvind K. Garg, Senior Vice President and Head, L&T Construction & Mining Machinery, said, “As committed at the COP26 Summit, India is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070. The entire ecosystem in India is working towards this direction. We currently offer a wide range of biodiesel-compatible Komatsu equipment, including Hydraulic Excavators, Dump Trucks, Wheel Loaders, Crawler Dozers, Motor Graders and Water Sprinklers. We also pioneered the introduction of electrically operated excavators in India and the recently supplied Komatsu PC3000 electrically driven excavators for the mining industry in Central India. We have also started working on battery-operated CE and exploring the introduction of Hybrid machines in the near future.”

Ramesh Palagiri, Managing Director & CEO, Wirtgen India, “As an internationally operating group of companies, Wirtgen Group is exporting its product and technology solutions worldwide. Given that fact, Wirtgen Group has five specialized production facilities in Germany and also three local production facilities in Brazil, China, and India. In India, the Wirtgen Group started its operations in 1995 as a sales and service subisidiary. The production facility commenced in Pune since 2011.”

According to Amarnath Ramachandran, Managing Director, Arx Mining and Construction Equipment, “We will be commencing exports in 2024 primarily to the Middle east, Africa and Southeast Asia. In 2025, the graders will enter the US market also. The dates are based on emission regulation planning in various countries and discussions with engine manufacturers. Arx Mining and Construction Equipment Limited has currently three categories of products Mining and Construction – where we just launched a new range of Motor graders. These are 32T (315 HP), 20T (220 HP), 16T (173 HP) and 11.5T (121 HP) Weights here are with all attachments and base weight will be slightly lower.”

V. Senthilkumar, Managing Director, Propel Industries, said, “Propel has a presence in 15 countries around the world. We are focussing on increasing our share of the export market and enter new countries. The
new range of products we introduced in EXCON 2022 have kindled greater interest from across the globe. Propel successfully participated in Hillhead, UK in June and we are excited to participate in Bauma, Munich this October where we have a stall in Hall C2 | Stand 106.”

Debasis Bhattacharya, Vice President, AJAX Engineering, says, “AJAX is an indigenous brand which has strategically aligned its product portfolio in line with the Indian government’s ‘Make in India, Made for the World’ programme. The company’s product portfolio offers state-of-the-art machines equipped with top-class technology manufactured indigenously, for the complete bandwidth of construction infrastructure segments.”

BKR Prasad, Head, Marketing & Product Development, Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company, said, “Currently, we are exporting machines to SAARC countries through Tata Hitachi authorized dealers, and the Middle East & Africa through the Hitachi network. Nepal / Hitachi network are the two biggest markets for us & we are excited about growing our business in Bangladesh, Bhutan & Sri Lanka as well. We have recently introduced a 99 HP Shinrai Power Backhoe Loader in Nepal, Bhutan & Bangladesh. Through this, we hope to leverage our manufacturing capability to address requirements from parts of the global market.”

Hyunsoo Kim, MD & CEO, Doosan Bobcat India, said, “Doosan Bobcat established the Chennai plant as the global hub for supplying Bobcat Backhoe Loaders. Most of the Global OEM suppliers are present with manufacturing facilities in India, having extensive supply chain networks. Through this, we have evaluated the Indian supplier base for our global models and have achieved 100% localization with high quality at the optimal cost. Besides the prevailing inflation and an increase in the cost of raw materials in the export markets, Bobcat India with its localization efforts is able to meet the demands of these markets.”

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