The Industry Forum started its anniversary year with a record number of registrations from more than 270 international trade professionals: The convention initiated by CADENAS has been attracting participants from all over the world for 20 years now. Interested parties got together for a mutual exchange of expertise in the WWK Arena in Augsburg, Germany once again on 20 and 21 March 2019. Best practice presentations, workshops, the accompanying specialist exhibition as well as the newly introduced panel discussions "Innovation Dialog Tables" offered numerous opportunities to discuss the latest technologies, developments and trends of the industry. The main topics were Industry 4.0 and cost optimization in engineering with Strategic Parts Management, expansion of marketing potentials and the implementation of the digital twin with Electronic CAD Product Catalogs as well as current developments in the area of Building Information Modeling (BIM). The professional visitors were enthused once again by the annual convention: Over 93% of the participants rated the information content of the Industry Forum from good to very good.

Industry Forum looks back at 400 best practice presentations during the past 20 years

This year’s Industry Forum was opened by CADENAS CEO Jürgen Heimbach with a review of the past 20 years of the convention: "The record number of visitors this year shows that the Industry Forum has become one of the most important instances for decision-makers in the industry, concerning the topics of parts management, product catalogs and BIM." Surveys of the past years confirm that the convention is popular among the participants, not only because of the best practice presentations, but above all due to the diverse opportunities for networking. To further encourage mutual exchange, five ‘Innovation Dialog Tables" were organized for the first time in 2019. Numerous participants took the opportunity to discuss interesting future issues such as digital twin, GDPR for parts portals, LOD / LOIs for the BIM areas or AR / VR as well as other object recognition and visualization technologies. "I found the new Innovation Dialog Tables to be very successful," enthused Jürgen Thome of CIDEON Software & Services GmbH. "It offers the participants the opportunity for the discussion of innovative future issues, such as the topic important to us ‘PARTsolutions as Cloud’."

Innovations and breakthrough technologies revolutionize the way engineers work

In the 23 best practice presentations, leading companies demonstrate how they meet the challenges of digitalization and Industry 4.0 with the most modern of technologies. In the area of parts management, the professional visitors received numerous ideas of how to manage and locate purchased and their own parts effectively as well as how to achieve cost savings. "The Industry Forum provides the ideal platform to hold discussions with experts from the industry. Knowledge is like currency," says the speaker Olaf Hilla of WABCO GmbH. In the course of my presentation, I had the opportunity to make our knowledge available to the participants and in return to obtain new input from other specialists. Moreover, I gained the knowledge that WABCO is already at a very good level with CADENAS parts management." As every year, the participants were informed beforehand about the upcoming new features of the Strategic Parts Management PARTsolutions. In their presentation, Frank Epple and Jürgen Heimbach of CADENAS gave glimpses of the new version 12, which will offer engineers a partial search function for marked component edges, among other things.

How component manufacturers get from their vision of digitalization to reality

In the wake of digitalization and the digital twin, component manufacturers face numerous challenges and require entirely new solution approaches. As a result, the requirements of digital components are becoming more complex. How manufacturers make their components and product catalogs fit for the age of digitalization, thus remaining competitive, was demonstrated by the presentations of the Industry Forum in the area of the software solution eCATALOGsolutions. In addition, the new features of the pending PARTcommunity version 9 of the 3D CAD download portal was exclusively introduced. "In the course of the numerous presentations of the Industry Forum, I received a lot of helpful information about the optimum marketing of technical components with eCATALOGsolutions by CADENAS. Especially about which new features are ready and in which areas we can offer our customers more service," confirmed the participant Kerstin Keller of Fath GmbH mechanical engineering components.

In the framework of the Industry Forum 2019, selected component manufacturers were awarded the CADENAS "Golden Catalog Seal". The golden seal honors Electronic Product Catalogs which, among other things, provide an integration of a product configurator, automatic 2D dimensioning for CAD components as well as product data in at least three languages.

Global product data management in the BIM area

The architecture sector is also currently undergoing radical change: Manufacturers of architectural components are being confronted with completely new requirements through BIM. The growing significance of this topic was also taken into account at the Industry Forum and for 2019, more informative best practice presentations were offered about the advantages of 3D CAD BIM models for digital construction and how manufacturers can optimally provide their construction elements.

Interactive workshops provided practical knowledge

The interactive workshops took place parallel to the best practice presentations: According to the motto "Fully automatic classification with PARTsolutions", the participant learned how the Geometric Similarity Search of the Strategic Parts Management supports a fully automatic classification. Moreover, component manufacturers learned how they can create parts catalogs with eCATALOGsolutions by importing already existing data. "eCATALOGsolutions and PARTsolutions workshops at the Industry Forum are highly recommended. They offer participants the unique opportunity to update themselves in groups and to acquire new know-how for daily work," says Jacqueline Sartorius of Rotex Heating Systems GmbH.

The CADENAS convention was accompanied by an integrated trade exhibition of numerous well-known companies. "The biggest benefit for us as exhibitor on this event is making connections to potential partners and customers in the design industry to introduce our innovative 3D display technology. The Industry Forum is the perfect event to get in touch with expert audience and to show them our innovative ideas," says Steward Mardell of Vision TriTeQ Ltd.

Further information about the CADENAS Industry Forum at: https://www.industry-forum.biz/en