Energy efficiency included in technical specifications

According to the VDW, the mega-trends from previous years - energy and resource efficiency, higher productivity, life cycle performance, quality assurance and user-friendliness - are still on the agenda. The Blue Competence Initiative of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) is also going very well. Dr. Schäfer: "28 trade associations have now joined and 241 companies have signed the agreement as an alliance member." CECIMO, the European machine tool association, also assumed overall responsibility for the machine tool industry in Europe at the start of the year.

"This Initiative has clearly shown that the German machine tool industry is a pioneer in the area of energy efficiency", praised Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard Abele, Head of the Institute for Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW) at Darmstadt Technical University, which will itself be represented at AMB 2012 (Hall 5, Stand 5d32) by the 'Metal Working Innovation Tour'. Abele:"The Initiative has also ensured that many customers now think far more about energy-efficient machine tools than they did in the past." Numerous customers, especially in the automotive industry, have included energy efficiency in their technical specifications. One typical example is Niles Simmons Industrieanlagen. Micaela Schönherr: In the new N30 size of our CNC inclined bed turning lathes in the N Series, which we will present at AMB 2012, we achieve significant energy savings thanks to lightweight materials, specific energy input and a customised machine design."