Barcelona Industry Week reveals the future of digital transformation for industry

IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and 3D are just some of the technologies already transforming industry. Barcelona Industry Week (BIW), organized by Fira de Barcelona, provides an arena for large companies and experts to analyse the opportunities and challenges before them, promoting Industry 4.0 and its application to areas like production, transport, logistics, energy and health, amongst others. In its second year, it will bring together three events, HEALTHIO, IN(3D)USTRY From Needs to Solutions and IoT Solutions World Congress (IoTSWC), which will cover raw materials, mass and personalized production, process automation, smart connectivity, cybersecurity and disruptive transformation.

The event, which will take place from 16 to 18 October at the venues in Montjuïc (HEALTHIO and IN(3D)USTRY From Needs to Solutions) and Gran Via (IoTSWC), will bring together more than 21,000 professional visitors, who will be able to find out more about the new products of the 450-plus exhibiting companies and listen to the almost 600 experts who will take part in the talks and panel discussions scheduled over the three days that the fairs will be held.

The three events will thus coincide and focus on promoting innovation in industrial processes and supporting companies in their digital transformation, thus attracting professionals interested in identifying the most innovative and cross-sectional ranges throughout the chain of production.

Fira de Barcelona’s Director, Constantí Serrallonga, states that, “Barcelona Industry Week demonstrates our commitment to further advance into the future, as a vehicle of support and a driving force for the digital transformation of companies, which is the key challenge for their current and future competitiveness.” He added that, “with these three simultaneous events, Barcelona provides a unique opportunity to discover all the cross-sector opportunities and transformation strategies offered by new technologies in the face of the now inevitable changes”

Industry 4.0 Seminars with the Zona Franca Consortium

In partnership with the Zona Franca Consortium as the main sponsor, BIW will organize a series of activities which, with the motto Inspiring the industrial future, will address the impact of Industry 4.0.

In addition to a series of talks, presentations and dialogues concerning the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, Barcelona Industry Week will provide a platform for the presentation of the High-Tech Incubators which are being developed in Europe and will display one of its most prominent deployments in industry, the Advanced Manufacturing Hub for 3D printing in the Zona Franca of Barcelona.

BIW will also host the first Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking Congress, co-organized by Fira de Barcelona and the Light Eyes consultancy, where experts will approach the great challenges related to data protection on the internet.

IoT applied to the business sectors

IoT Solutions World Congress, the primary event on innovations related to the industrial Internet of Things (IoT), will take place from 16 to 18 October at the Gran Via venue. Organized by Fira de Barcelona and the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), it will bring together a congress, commercial exhibition and testbeds to promote professional networking. This year’s show will confirm the increase in IoT implementation and also demonstrate the convergence of this technology with artificial intelligence and blockchain.

The participation of more than 310 exhibitors from all over the world is expected, among them IT companies, software platform developers, hardware manufacturers, security firms, telecommunications operators, service operators and industrial automation companies. The above include ABB, Deloitte, Huawei, Google Cloud, Intel, Microsoft, Sas, Telit, Vodafone, Wipro, Dassault Systèmes, Fiware, Kaspersky, Libelium, Software AG, Orange, Telefonica and Thingstream. IoTSWC 2018 will once again open its testbed area, where demonstrations will be held to see the 10 winners out of the 60-plus companies from 20 countries in operation.

For its part, the congress area will gather more than 250 international speakers. The sessions will revolve around nine themes: connected transport, manufacture of goods, healthcare, energy and supplies, construction and infrastructure, facilitating technologies, blockchain and artificial intelligence, the latter two with their own forums. A new feature this year will be the organization of several workshops to take a closer look at aspects of IoT technology approved by the IIC and the holding of a meeting of female managers who head the international IoT ecosystem.

Innovations in the field of health

There will be a wide range of products from the innovative ecosystem of the health field on display at the second HEALTHIO, which will take place in Pavilion 8 of the Montjuïc venue. Visitors will be able to test and experiment with highly advanced techniques and practices employed in the healthcare system, in situ, by means of 24 itineraries divided into three themed areas (health and well-being, personalized medicine and chronic illnesses and ageing), in which the latest applications designed to facilitate the empowerment and decision-making of health users will be displayed.

HEALTHIO will welcome 95 exhibitors, including the Hospital Clinic, the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital, the Vall d’Hebron Hospital, the Consorci Sanitari Integral and the Guttmann Institute and leading companies such as Roche, Sanitas Hospitales and Intersystems and will bring together more than 240 speakers. It is also expected to attract about 3,500 visitors. In addition, it will host the Health & Bio Team Dating, a Biocat, Banco Sabadell and Catalonia Bio conference to create teams of scientists and entrepreneurs.

Beyond 3D printing

After two successful fairs, IN(3D)USTRY From Needs to Solutions, the event devoted to the additive and advanced manufacturing ecosystem, returns with the incorporation of other industrial sectors, including robotics, plastic transformers, moulds and dies, plastics and new materials. The event, set to be held in Pavilion 8 of the Montjuïc venue, expects to attract 3,500 visitors. It will be structured around the IN(3D)USTRY Arena, a large innovation area with a stage where representatives of companies which already apply 3D printing to their production processes will present their success stories, challenges and needs to the visitors and companies within the sector.

The fair will be attended by 40 companies using this technology in sectors such as aeronautics, healthcare, industry, cars and retail, such as Siemens, GE Ventures, Adidas, Luxottica, Aciturri, Deutsche Bahn and the European Space Agency (ESA), among many others. The third IN(3D)USTRY fair will also include Ayri11, an industrial automation and robotics congress with around one hundred talks and technical mini-courses designed for professionals from the industry and future robotics experts, Transplast, the subcontracting fair aimed at plastic conversion companies, and the fourth Reshape Awards, focusing on wearable technology and digital manufacturing, as well as an exhibition area with around fifty companies.