IMTS 2022 was a very different event compared to IMTS 2018—a rather obvious
statement given the intervening COVID-19 years and ongoing macro issues associated with war in Ukraine, energy costs, and global inflationary pressures. However, the tea leaves our analysts read at the event signal a community that is robust, is beginning to truly embrace digital transformation as a force multiplier, and is setting itself up for a changing world.
Seven analysts from ABI Research attended IMTS, and several clear trends were evident in most conversations—the most prominent being labor shortages. The overspill from COVID-19 shutdowns and the trend to reshoring means that the biggest risk to productivity in many instances is the availability of skilled workers. This is driving companies toward technology as a stopgap that could turn permanent. Key technology beneficiaries are the robotics industry in the form of cobots, which were near enough prominent on every other stand at the show, and to a lesser degree the longer-term prospect of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs).
In the midst of their observations, our analysts concluded that digital transformation is gathering pace. The dominant trends might change and differ, but we will see that digitization can simultaneously afford the flexibility to address future issues while addressing real-world issues today.
Download the whitepaper to learn more about what our analysts observed at this year's event.
