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Andrew Czyzewski
Reporter
Hannover hangover
As the newest member of The Engineer’s editorial team, I was faced with the rite-of-passage that is Hannover Messe – the world’s largest industrial manufacturing fair – which took place this week in Germany.
I was pre-warned that anything I might have witnessed at the ExCel or NEC would look like a mere playground in comparison; but nothing quite prepares you for the sheer dizzying, vertigo-inducing scale of the event.
With some 30 hangar-sized exhibition halls covering at total 5.3 million square feet of floor space, it felt more like a city – some sort of Disneyland of manufacturing innovation.
The stands themselves are something to behold as well – we’re talking about a whole rocket module from the Ariane launcher, frankly disturbing robot machine arms clearing plotting world domination, and rather beautiful, painstakingly cut-away engines.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Outside meanwhile there was an all electric Porsche-Ruf concept accelerating at frightening rate across the expansive pavilion (although to be fair the driver was probably just trying to get to from one end of the exhibition to the other without the half-hour walk).
I spoke with a British representative of a large German engineering firm who were returning to Hannover after a two-year, self-imposed hiatus caused by the financial crisis.
This year they wanted to announce they were ‘back with a bang’ and certainly spared no expense – my subject becoming shy as my guesses on the cost of their stand went north of a million euros.
’You would just never get anything like this back home, people just won’t spend the money. Here you get Government ministers dropping in at exhibit stands and not for cynical, opportunistic purposes as often happens back home.’
Indeed with the British Motor Show gone by the wayside is it worth asking why we don’t have something even approaching the scale of the Messe here in the UK?
Britain is of course the world’s sixth largest manufacturing nation (or seventh, depending on your league table) – yet there’s this stubbornly prevalent misconception that ‘we don’t make anything any more’.
It’s perhaps ironic that the Hannover show began in 1947 as ‘Export-Messe’ – a British-led initiative to rebuild German industry after World War II.
According to the official website ‘the victorious Western powers had decided that the only way for Germany to become economically self-reliant again would be through exporting its own goods.’
Therefore ’in order to show the world the kind of economic revival that entrepreneurs, workers and politicians were capable of jointly bringing about,’ the Germans were encouraged to organize a trade fair to promote the their goods and services.
Prescient stuff indeed. It’s tempting to speculate that a large trade fair would be an ideal way of announcing that British manufacturing ‘is back’ from the recession (although this may be jinxing the recovery given the continued skyward direction of raw material price inflation).
Plus I can’t help thinking there’s something distinctly un-British about shouting about to the roof-tops about our innovations with a hoard of dancing girls singing er … British pop songs.
But it’s worth considering given that one of the key themes of the exhibition seemed to be renewable energy, something that Britain has pretensions to be a world leader in.
There was already considerable opposition to new nuclear in Germany before Japan, so while the reactors in Fukushima are still smouldering the onus was on Hannover to display viable alternatives.
There seemed to be a recognition of the need to address the practicalities of relying on alternative energy sources, with a particular focus on intermittency. A number of researchers from the Fraunhofer Institutes are developing grid-connected fluid batteries, known as Redox flow batteries. They aim to construct a battery the size of a tennis court with a generation capability of 20 MWh to meet the power requirements of around 2000 houses during a cloudy day or a long winter night.
The researchers showcased their work by deploying a 2kW storage plant at the fair itself. A 20 kW power plant is expected to go on online next year while the researchers believe they can achieve more than 1MW of power within 5 years from a plant.
Readers' comments (9)
Max Toti | 8 Apr 2011 2:04 pm
What a shame that the 96 UK companies exhibiting at the show don't get any mention at all. We, Captec Ltd, were exhibiting in the Digital factory part of the exhibition as were 95 others scattered around the 23 halls. Yet our national press pays no attention. The French had a massive presence despite a footprint of only 200 companies. Double the UK but created more than 10 times the awareness. UK firms were virtually invisible, yet this is the premier manufacturing automation show in the world, with some technology themes like renewable energy that we can't afford to be seen to be lagging.
The Germans as always totally dominated with the theme of "Germany at it Best". So what happened with flying the UK flag? Shouldn't the Engineer at least showcase the best of British at the show?
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DaveD | 8 Apr 2011 2:17 pm
I haven't been to the Hannover Messe for some years but I do remember that the weekend days were noticeable in that German families could be seen looking around the exhibitions as a day out. They were interested in products and manufacturing. How has Germany managed to keep science and engineering at the forefront of their national way of life while the Brits are letting it slip further into the background?
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P Baker | 8 Apr 2011 2:18 pm
For most senior engineers, the Hannover Messe is well known.
Unfortunately, so too is the demise of all the serious industrial fairs at the NEC, along with the intellectual conferences and seminars as UK engineering numbers have fallen.
Even great independent institutions like the Institute of Electrical Engineering, who now raise so few members, have had to merge, with its great history into the lesser IET.
Unless successive government start to back UK engineering at the small economic business unit level, (i.e. under 50 employees), there will soon be so few to support the larger activities that they too will have to relocate to Europe.
So what has happened to all the descendants, of our great industrialists?
They have become educated and turned away from the honest graft of manufacture, and now contribute so little, as wealthy consumers.
Today, descendants of those industrialists are in Government with little knowledge of manufacturing and the history of our great wealth creation through the last century.
When things go wrong they will have their own resources to move to a more buoyant country and avoid the damage that has been done by the great meddlers they have become.
For the rest of us who have spent our whole lives working in UK engineering, it can feel like we have been taken advantage of when one looks at the rewards and benefits of those who have made real contributed to our society and those who seem to have done little but exist in it.
P.Baker - 42 years an engineer.
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Frank Johnston | 8 Apr 2011 7:48 pm
I too attended the Hanover Messe twice in the '70's. A design engineer at that time, I found the experience thoroughly amazing and stimulating. But, at that time we had a healthy engineering industry.
For example, there were 15+ crane manufacturers in the Glasgow area. All gone!
I was gutted to see that large crane on a barge passing below the Forth Bridge on it's way from Chine to Rosyth. I was originally with Babcock cranes, and they built two similar Goliaths for nuclear power station assembly.
I am sure many engineers can relate to my experience.
What's gone wrong?
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S. Martin | 9 Apr 2011 1:37 am
Again it is the apathy of the British public, and their total unawareness of engineering, what it does, and what it gives them. Take away their latest gadget, toy, or computer and car, then take away the public transport systems, then watch the outcry.
There is no interest in engineering, and it is not promoted by engineers, the media, and many other sources who could promote it. The British public want and demand their gadgets and all without knowing what went into its design, manufacture, and maintenance.
What we need is a return to the great trade shows and exhibitions of the Victorian era. Shows which proudly displayed engineering, science, and technology, and re-awaken the publics interest. We need to be shouting about British engineering, promoting it worldwide, and make it fun for family days out to awaken the childrens interests.
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K. Irvine-Brown | 10 Apr 2011 11:06 pm
I agree with P.Baker's comments completely. I am an Australian who was fortunate enough to have done his drafting apprenticeship in the UK, Offshore Oil industry. he attitude towards engineering was prevalent even then and has obviously compounded over the years. It is not too late for the UK engineering fraternity as a whole to promote itself internationally instead of being the industrial Uriah Heap it would appear to be. The engineers I worked with there were some of the best I have encountered and the draftsmen second to none.
K.Irvine-Brown - 34 yrs a draftsman.
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Klaus Rautenbach | 11 Apr 2011 7:31 am
Dear Andrew,
Thank you for what you have written about this years Hannover Messe. I had the pleasure to be one of 90 women and men manning the stand of Festo.
Reading your article makes me even prouder to work for a company showing its power a the worlds lagest industrial show.
I fully agree with your impressions when walking over the Hannover fairground. The sheer size of it and the efforts people showing their products is overwhelming.
But is it worth all the efforts and the money from the companies point of view? The answer (to my opinion) is 'Yes, if it is done right', as always... It is definaltely not only about showing products but lots about brand management.
Such a Messe in England? Yes, absolutely worth thinking about. Festo would participate for sure. And why not The Engineer to be the leading force pushing it.
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Chris Wood | 12 Apr 2011 8:02 am
@ S.Martin, speak for yourself... I know plenty of STEM ambassadors of all ages from graduates to senior engineers that regularly get involved with events that go into schools... Shows like the Big Bang are supported by large companies and get crowds of people in... What are you doing to help?
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John R McCallum | 29 Apr 2011 10:42 am
The demise in engineering and its respectability went during the Thatcher years but started with unions and strikes in the 70s. It is a pity our government did not have the ability to engage both unions and management and maybe today we may be in a better stronger position as Germany is now.
I am presently in Germany working as an engineer and there is a definite acceptance of the business as respectable and constructive, which I do not get in the UK.
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