Building Bridges: The Power of Connection at IMTS 2024

Since its debut in 1927, IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show has been a cornerstone event in the manufacturing sector. The largest manufacturing trade show in North America is an expansive showcase of the latest technologies that are driving the metalworking and manufacturing industries into the future. But at its core, IMTS is and always has been about fostering vital industry connections. This “interconnectedness” between technology providers and forward-thinking shop leaders represents the theme of IMTS 2024 as the hub of those connections. Here is our take on what to expect at the big Show. (Note: Times and locations of events included here may change by the time of the show. Please visit IMTS.com to verify listings.) 

An Evolving Showcase

IMTS has long been celebrated for its ability not only to showcase new technologies, but also to bring new perspectives and participants to the forefront. “If it was just the repeat of all the previous exhibitors, you would say you have a strong show, but not an evolving show. IMTS has always been an evolving show,” says Peter Eelman, Chief Experience Officer for AMT – The Association of Manufacturing Technology, and the longtime organizer of IMTS. For the 2024 show, this evolutionary has attracted new exhibitors and presenters in the digital manufacturing space, such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud. Representatives from these companies, along with those from Siemens, Autodesk and Hexagon, will showcase cloud services, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and automation. As Travis Egan, Chief Revenue Officer for AMT, puts it, “I think what visitors will really see at IMTS 2024 is that digital manufacturing will truly emerge as one of the biggest themes at the show in September.”

New Exhibitors and Partners

Anchored in the ability to attract new exhibitors and form partnerships with diverse organizations, IMTS will feature cutting-edge production solutions in AMT’s Emerging Technology Center (ETC) at the entrance to the North Building in IMTS booth 236700. The ETC will present technologies aimed at tackling today’s most urgent manufacturing challenges, such as automation, additive manufacturing, reshoring, the increasing investment in aerospace and defense, and enhancing worker productivity.

Notable attractions located in the ETC will include Blue Forge Alliance and Oak Ridge National Laboratory and their innovative projects that include cutting edge technologies for submarine construction, as well as a multi-process manufacturing cell capable of significantly reducing lead times, lowering costs, and substituting castings and forgings to reshore production. 

Visitors to the ETC can also learn about Apollo, a commercial, humanoid, AI-powered robot introduced by Apptronik in August 2023 and designed for user-friendly operation, mass production, performance, and safety. Apollo was designed to addresses labor challenges by preventing injuries, enhancing productivity, and allowing humans to focus on higher-value tasks. 

IMTS Sector Hubs

A new feature at IMTS 2024 will be the introduction of IMTS Sector Hubs, designed to define and explore growth areas for manufacturing that include additive (West Building, Level 3 — 433037); automation (North Building, Level 3 — 236635);  digital manufacturing (East Building, Level 3 — 135401); and metalworking (South Building, Level 3 — 338266)

These four hubs will provide attendees with focused areas to explore the latest advancements and opportunities in each sector, and broadcast content being produced in the IMTS+ Creator’s Lounge (South Building, Level 3 — 338600). This Creator’s Lounge will feature live interviews across several technology topics that will also be carried throughout McCormick Place and on IMTS+, as well as on demand. – Brent Donaldson

Preparing This Generation and the Next at IMTS

Filling 400,000 open manufacturing jobs is a monumental task — but one that Greg Jones, director of Strategic Program and Partnership at SME; Catherine Ross, director of Community Engagement at AMT; and their industry partners are tackling all the same at IMTS 2024.

Jones says the show will host its largest Student Summit yet, enabling students and job seekers to explore a show-within-a-show to learn about manufacturing technologies and jobs. Interactive demonstrations of the types of machines and equipment in manufacturing classrooms around the nation will fulfill the Summit’s traditional goal of embodying the “Manufacturing Classroom of Tomorrow.” Jones and Ross also hope to center an inclusive atmosphere at the Summit, reaching out to demographics underrepresented in U.S. manufacturing to encourage them to consider careers in the industry.

Beyond the Student Summit, AMT is teaming up with several industry partners — including Modern Machine Shop — for conference and workshop programming to help stakeholders in small and medium-sized job shops develop their existing talent’s skills with new technologies. These sessions will also focus on the business strategies of successful job shops, helping stakeholders upskill at the same time as their team.

A Hands-On Summit

This year’s Summit will take place on Level 2 of the East Building, closer to the hustle and bustle of the main show itself. As with the 2022 Student Summit, robotics and metrology OEMs will have a large presence at this year’s event, with demonstrations and interactive booths for visitors to gain hands-on experience with manufacturing technologies like robotic teach pendants and CNC controls. These booths will be joined by mobile labs from community colleges, manufacturing institutes and other partners. The mobile labs will offer students demonstrations of production technologies such as desktop machine tools and 3D printing. Chicago-based FIRST Robotics teams will also lead demonstrations of their robots.

This year’s Student Summit also features what Jones calls the “Smartforce Amphitheater,” which combines a presentation area for larger “Mainstage” talks with breakout rooms for “Lightning Learning” sessions, where students and teachers alike can receive crash courses in particular types of machining technology. The amphitheater will also host “Manufacturing Ally Rally” talks and panels from prominent influencers and thought leaders in manufacturing such as Meaghan Ziemba, Drew Crowe and Chris Luecke.

Appealing to Machinists Old and New

Jones says IMTS’ wide reach is echoed in its student attendee demographics, if not to the same international extent as its other attendees. Over the 36-year history of the Student Summit, he says delegations of students have arrived from 46 U.S. states — though most are from Illinois and the greater Chicago area. About 70% of Student Summit attendees are high-school aged or younger, with many of the older students in technical classes or a technical school, he estimates. The other 30% are students from community colleges or four-year colleges, oftentimes near the end of their degrees as they search for post-graduation jobs.

At IMTS 2022, Jones and Ross spearheaded an initiative to connect this demographic with jobs, working with companies taking part in the Student Summit to generate QR codes linking directly to companies’ careers pages. Jones says that this was particularly effective in helping companies fill full-time positions as well as co-ops and internships, and that SME and AMT are encouraging exhibitors at the Student Summit to repeat the strategy again this year.

Around the Show

Programming for students and other newcomers to manufacturing will also take place outside of the Student Summit. For example, SME and AMT will also offer guided tours of the show floor to students and other visitors, helping them gain a well-rounded experience of the show, even if they only attend the show for one or two days. These tours are still under development, but plans include visits to the metrology wing of the East Building, as well as the CAD/CAM and general software areas.

Several IMTS ELEVATE workshops will also provide opportunities for shop owners and other industry veterans to learn about the technologies and business strategies that are helping their peers succeed in today’s manufacturing market. In addition to workshops aimed at Latin American attendees and women in manufacturing, the ELEVATE programming includes Modern Machine Shop’s Top Shops workshop, where industry experts will discuss the Top Shops Benchmarking survey and Top Shops honorees will provide insights into their successes. Additional ELEVATE programming includes a half-day workshop about effective digitalization strategies and technologies, with another focusing on the potential power of 3D printing for job shops.

After its 2023 independent debut, The Automated Shop Conference (TASC) will also host a half-day event within IMTS. This conference aims to equip small and medium-sized job shops with the knowledge and tactics they need to succeed with automation, with presentations from automation power users and other experienced thought leaders. – Evan Doran

Supply Chain Forum

While the technology that puts the cutter to the workpiece often steals the show, the success of a shop depends on getting parts to customers. This makes managing cutting tools, materials and shipping as vital a part of manufacturing as the machine tool. After all, having the most skilled machinist with the best machine tool on the market means nothing if the part never reaches the customer.

One event to look forward to at IMTS is the Supply Chain Forum on September 11 and12. The forum is a result of a partnership with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, and it includes discussions about technological solutions to weaknesses in the supply chain. Topics include the use of automation and additive manufacturing to improve supply chains, as well as the benefits of an interconnected digital manufacturing ecosystem in keeping the supply chain running.

According to Ryan Kelly — GM for AMT’s San Francisco Tech Lab — this event highlights how much focus has been drawn toward the supply chain since 2020. “From my perspective, the supply chain has always been vital, but facilities rarely treat it with high-level importance,” he says. “The global supply chain crisis during COVID has changed the thinking around it, showing how optimizing your supply chain can be a competitive advantage.”

On this point, Kelly has full agreement from Harry Moser — president of the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Moser will be speaking at the Supply Chain Forum and has written extensively about the need for and growth in reshoring. According to Moser, U.S. companies are in a strong position to compete with importers. In part, this is because the cost of importing has risen recently, with overseas shipping rates rising from just above $2,000 per container to well above $6,000 per container. This helps the relatively higher price of products in the U.S., which makes importing parts less attractive and gives more weight to the core benefits of reshoring: increasing the flexibility and reliability of supply chains.

“When your suppliers are local, changes in material needs and quantities are relatively easy to address quickly,” Moser says, “compared to waiting months for goods to arrive from overseas.” This makes the relative security of working with U.S. shops a competitive advantage he believes shops should not overlook. “If shops want to increase orders, rather than compete with shops down the street, you may want to compete with imports.” He further points out that reshoring production acts as insurance against supply chain instability overseas. “For OEMs, if a major exporting country goes to war with a neighbor, your products might suddenly be out of reach. It’s much better to already have a good relationship with local shops than to be competing with every other importer who suddenly needs local suppliers.”

For Kelly, however, the real draw of the forum will be the focus on emerging technologies and how they can make supply chains more resilient. “We want people to understand how supply chains work and how technology can improve their functioning,” Kelly says. “That is why talks will discuss the specific benefits and returns that come from integrating automation, intelligent systems and other technologies into managing a facility’s supply chain.” It is one thing to know that a resilient supply chain is a competitive advantage, but it’s another to actually build resilience into your supply chain. – Eli Plaskett

Driving the Future: Automation Innovations at IMTS 2024

“For most of the years that we've had IMTS, we haven't really specifically broken out an automation sector,” notes Doug Woods, president of AMT — The Association for Manufacturing Technology. At previous shows, automation solutions were found in most, if not all technology-focused areas, from metal cutting equipment to inspection. “There's very few manufacturing disciplines that don't have some kind of automation today,” adds Scott Hibbard, an automation advisor for AMT.

But automation technology has developed and grown in popularity over the past three or four shows. New options — such as collaborative robots — have come to the market, and automation has become cheaper, easier to implement, and more reliable. Manufacturers used to purchase and implement machine tools and automation systems at the same time, but now shops are increasingly looking for ways to automate the machine tools they already have. Attitudes toward automation have also shifted: People used to be concerned that automation would take jobs away. “I think that has been dispelled a thousand times over,” Woods adds. “We have this really urgent need to be able to maximize our capital equipment and get it running multi-shift.” Hibbard agrees. “With the labor shortage, automation is now a necessity,” he says.

A Sector of Its Own  

Given all of these shifts in the automation space, AMT saw the need for an area at IMTS dedicated to automation. “This is the next step in that evolution,” Woods says. The Automation Sector, accelerated by SPS – Smart Production Solutions will occupy a large portion of the North Hall, housing exhibitors including robotics companies, integrators, specialty software developers, makers of end effectors and other accessories, and more. The sector also includes a stage that will host topical presentations throughout the show. Attendees can sit down for 15 or 20 minutes, learn about a technology, and then go see it in action in the Automation Sector or elsewhere on the show floor.

The automation sector is presented in partnership with SPS—Smart Production Solutions. SPS is an annual trade show held in Nuremberg, Germany that showcases the full spectrum of automation solutions, from intelligent systems to discrete components. AMT recently entered into a partnership with the show’s producer, Mesago Messe Frankfurt GMBH to bring SPS to IMTS, and, eventually, Atlanta for a standalone show September 16-18, 2025, at the George World Congress Center. “SPS Nuremberg includes a lot of cloud, AI, analytics, assembly companies and so forth. And we really haven't had a show like that in the US in many, many years,” Hibbard notes.

Woods is excited about the partnership’s potential to bring new companies and technologies to the US market. “What I find is nice about going to international events is you find the interesting small- to medium-sized companies that probably aren't going to be exhibiting an international shows outside of their home market,” he says. “And you really find some interesting ways that those technologies could be used either in partnering or collaborating.”

This partnership will bring new automation exhibitors to the show. “We thought, they have some things that bring in a new look at automation that might be helpful for the sector at IMTS,” Woods explains. “Why don't we start that a year before the 2025 launch of the SPS show in Atlanta and collaborate to bring the two parties and the names and the brands together?” This gives companies, such as Manz Automation, which specializes in assembly lines, a way into the American market.   “Some of those people have rarely exhibited in the US,” Hibbard adds.

According to Woods, SPS Atlanta is an extension of the increased focus on automation at IMTS. “The idea really with the SPS partnership is accelerating what we're doing already moving into more and more automation at IMTS,” he explains.

Automation Events

Automation will also feature at the events co-located with IMTS. IMTS Elevate Job Shops is a series of four half-day workshops focused on smaller, high-mix/low-volume manufacturers. “When it comes to tool shops and contract manufacturers, they represent between 30 and 40% of all the manufacturing technology purchased in the United States,” Woods notes. “It’s a really important group, but at the same time, a lot of those companies are fairly small companies. The typical size of contract manufacturing shops are about 27 people on average.” This means adopting new manufacturing technologies can be a challenge for these enterprises. “The scope and complexity of what you see available at an IMTS can be overwhelming,” he adds. This event is designed to help these companies find and implement the best solutions. One workshop in particular, The Shop of Our Future, on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 10, has a focus on automation for job shops with sessions on using automation to unlock efficiency, machine to machine learning and more.  “We’re really trying to bring some expertise to help those folks better understand what's available, how to use what's available and how to compare those different technologies and really focus in on their specific needs for business of their size and their type,” Woods explains. – Julia Hider