Control 2022: Successful return

18,531 trade visitors to Control 2022 finally experienced QA developments from the fields of vision technology, image processing, sensor technology, and measuring and testing technology again in Stuttgart - up to date, live and present. 617 exhibitors showed solution innovations and efficient QS cutting-edge technologies on nearly 23,000 square meters in six halls from May 3 to 6, 2022 in Stuttgart. "It's great that we can exhibit at Control again after two years without," said Gerhard Mohr, managing director of Kapp Niles Metrology GmbH in Großostheim. "It's gratifying to see that the trade visitors are arriving again, that the attendance fairs are picking up speed again and that we're getting a bit closer to the old reality." Georg Gutsch, area sales manager at Kapp Niles reinforced this statement, adding, "Face-to-face exchange simply has many great advantages that are not even possible with online formats."

Hubert Meintrup, Advisor New Technology at Matrix Automations GmbH in Ostfildern, also expressed his relief at finally being visible again to interested parties and users in the industry. "We are happy to be here again." Matthias Ruf, head of sales at the SKZ Plastics Center in Würzburg, Germany, was equally pleased. "For us, Control was successful from the very first day of the fair, with great interest on the part of visitors," Ruf explained. "We are happy to be able to present ourselves here as SKZ in a professional manner."

Control 2022: Finally live again!

For the 2022 industry highlight, 31 percent of exhibitors came from abroad; six percent of exhibitors came from Switzerland, four percent from Italy, three percent from the USA, and a good two percent of exhibitors came from the UK. Fabian Krüger, Control project manager, expressly thanked every exhibitor, including the trade show teams, for making the Control restart a reality. Bettina Schall, Managing Director of trade fair promoter P. E. Schall, also expressed her delight and satisfaction: "This trade fair was awaited with great anticipation, with excitement, and with the best mood in the run-up to the event. Because we all missed the personal exchange, the expert discussion at eye level, the real experience of the plants with all our senses. Fortunately, this is now possible again!"

Fast, precise and inline

Control is regarded as a pacesetter in quality assurance and provides trade visitors with everything they need to score points in international competition with excellent QA in manufacturing. In all the halls, it was consistently noticeable that there is a huge demand for personal exchanges on new developments. In the past three years since the last Control, quality inspection and quality assurance have taken on a new importance due to growing automation and digitalization, non-contact processes and remote services, small batch sizes, zero-defect manufacturing and data analysis. Therefore, news around measuring and testing technology, materials testing, analysis equipment, vision technology, image processing, sensor technology as well as weighing and counting technology were eagerly awaited. Above all, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) processes also met with great interest. The fact that AI has long since arrived in production and significantly simplifies QA processes could be experienced in many places. Even small industrial companies can realize a simple entry into AI support, as demonstrated, for example, by Dr. Dominik Lausch from Denkweit GmbH in Halle together with Marvin Krebs from Xactools in Bönnigheim. Measurement processes have to be increasingly fast, and they have to be more and more reliable. AI-supported methods provide support in this regard. One of the current topics is that measuring, testing and inspection processes are an integrated part of the manufacturing processes. Instead of taking place in specially created measuring environments, inspection processes are instead taking place in environments with dust and vibrations as well as under time pressure, resulting in new challenges for measuring machines and inspection equipment. "We are increasingly working on this," confirmed Dr. Heike Wenzel, Managing Partner of the Wenzel Group, who was also excited to finally be back live in Stuttgart.

Next Control in May 2023

On an international scale, Control is the most interesting and also the largest trade fair on the subject of quality assurance. With top-class events accompanying the trade show with the renowned research institutes of the Fraunhofer Institute, Fraunhofer Allianz Vision and Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), as well as the special show "Contactless Measuring Technology", Control is traditionally a firmly established marketplace of innovations. The next Control - International Trade Fair for Quality Assurance - will take place from May 9 to 12, 2023.

Further information: www.control-messe.de