A few weeks before it opens, the EPHJ-EPMT-SMT Trade Show announces the special participation of two personalities whose appearance is always eagerly awaited: André Kudelski, Chairman of Innosuisse and the Kudelski Group, and Richard Orlinski, the world’s biggest-selling French contemporary artist, who recently designed a number of watches for a famous Swiss watchmaking brand.
The organisers of the EPHJ-EPMT-SMT Trade Show are keen to get people talking about the ideas that are shaping the future of high-precision technology, and in particular Industry 4.0. This year, they have pulled off a master-stroke with their plan to open the event with a conference-debate led by André Kudelski, the embodiment of international success in the industry, focusing on Switzerland’s innovative capabilities and Kudelski’s experience at the helm of innovative companies.
As Managing Director of the Kudelski Group, which employs around 4,000 people in 33 countries, André Kudelski has been a pioneer in a number of technological fields. He will take part mainly in his capacity as Chairman of Innosuisse. He was appointed to this post by the Federal Council, the Swiss agency set up to encourage innovation and back the competitiveness of Swiss SMEs by freeing up major resources to stimulate innovation. But how is that really working? And does Switzerland truly ensure that it has the means to turn innovative ideas into reality? Find out on 12 June at 4.30 p.m. at Palexpo, in Geneva.
Another star guest at the EPHJ-EPMT-SMT Trade Show will be Richard Orlinski, one of contemporary art’s most sought-after artists. Richard Orlinski flouts convention and enjoys exploring different artistic fields: sculpture, design, music, live entertainment, to name a few. At a round table event devoted to new trends in watchmaking design, the French artist will talk about his most recent collaboration with a famous Swiss watchmaking company for which he has recently created a limited-edition collection, inspired by his graphic universe.
SMEs facing the transition to Industry 4.0, the smart factory Equally eagerly-awaited, the round table discussion “Industry 4.0, opportunity or threat for SMEs?” will bring together a number of experts from the industrial sector who will discuss this major challenge for Swiss and international industry. The digitisation of processes in an increasingly networked industry presents extraordinary opportunities as well as raising many questions.
Professor Eric Rosset and his team of experts will attempt not only to take stock of the developments in Industry 4.0, but also to outline the industrial methods that will take shape in the coming decades, with automation, digitalisation and computerisation continuing to gain ground.
Most importantly, we will be looking at the issues that Industry 4.0 raises for us now that it has become a reality for governments, industries, software editors and start-ups, too. The challenges it presents are paradoxical in nature: staying competitive, open-minded, modern, internationally oriented, networked and able to reliably produce very small-scale series.
Entire IT systems of manufacturing companies will need to be adapted. From managing simple smart units that automatically generate their own production instructions and controlling 3D printers that provide optimum flexibility in personalisation to reporting data in real time using smart devices.
So, fantasy or reality? Is this new industrial paradigm something that SMEs should fear or embrace? While this concept of manufacturing may still appear abstract to some, there is no doubt that it is best to seize the opportunity and act accordingly.
The challenge of accelerating the union of watchmaking and medtech Another important new feature of the 2018 edition of this event is the launch of the “Watch Medtech Innovation” Challenge. Having demonstrated true vision by combining watchmaking expertise, microtechnologies and medical technologies under one roof, the organisers of the EPHJ-EPMT-SMT Trade Show are now going one step further by launching, in partnership with the Inartis Foundation, the “Watch Medtech” innovation challenge.
The figures are very clear on this subject: more and more companies in the field of watchmaking are leveraging their expertise to diversify into the medtech sector. At the 2017 edition, almost one third of exhibitors stated that they were active in the medtech sector, a spectacular rise in the space of just 5 years. This opening enables these companies to position themselves in other promising markets and to balance the ups and downs of the watchmaking sector with those of microtechnologies.
Hence the idea to set up a Challenge whose main objective is to foster, support and assist new transdisciplinary projects based on harnessing collective intelligence.
The EPHJ-EPMT-SMT Trade Show seeks to enable companies interested in diversifying in this way to do so under the best conditions, with advice from specialists who will be able to support them in their endeavours and provide a degree of financial assistance.
