Shops go to trade shows to look for new technology. They go to purchasing fairs to look for new customers—customers that need the services of a shop with the right technology. The next Contract Manufacturing Purchasing Fair, which will take place in Chicago, September 7-8, 2011, is that kind of the event.
Metalworking tradeshows bring buyers and sellers together. Attendees from machine shops (the buyers) go in search of new machining equipment and process know-how. The exhibiting equipment suppliers (the sellers) demo new products and processes that might match the buyers’ needs.
Purchasing fairs bring buyers and sellers together, too. However, the attendees from machine shops are the sellers at these events. They go to meet prospective new customers (buyers of a shop’s machining services, for example) who are looking for contract manufacturers and job shops with the machining/manufacturing capability they need.
That's how the Contract Manufacturing Purchasing Fair works. This event is scheduled for September 7-8, 2011, at the Intercontinental Chicago O'Hare Airport Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois. The fair is presented by the National Tooling & Manufacturing Association (NTMA), the membership organization representing contract manufacturers and job shops. This purchasing fair matches up contract manufacturers and job shops with representatives, designers and engineers from companies such as GE, Navistar, Alcoa, Allison Transmission, the US Army and other regional and national firms that subcontract or outsource their manufacturing requirements.
Fair organizers set up face-to-face meetings by matching job shop capabilities with the contractor's needs. Other "free-form" opportunities for networking and hobnobbing are also part of this program. Because many of the "buyers" at this fair are eager to bring work back from offshore sources, this fair seems especially well timed.
