February 8 - 10, 2010 saw the doors open at the 2nd International Automotive Engineering Show which was held at the Auto Cluster Exhibition Centre, Chinchwad, Pune.

This year's theme was "New Directions in Automotive Manufacturing". The inauguration took place at 10 AM at the auditorium with Mr. Mukesh Malhotra, President - Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture, Mr. Ashish Sharma (IAS), Commissioner PCMC & Chairman - Auto Cluster, Mr. M. M. Singh, Managing Executive Officer, Production - Maruti Suzuki India Limited, Mr. S. N. Ambardekar, Sr. Vice President Manufacturing Operations CVBU, Tata Motors, Dr. Arun Jaura, Vice President Technology & Head of Engineering Centre, Eaton making inauguration remarks.

Mr. Anup Wadhwa, Director - Automation Industry Association and Mr. D. J. Kulkarni, Sr. Deputy Director - The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) added their industry perspective.

At the following session, Mr. J. K. Verma, Head Drive Technologies, Siemens Ltd., Mr. Mangesh Kale, Joint MD, Precision Automation & Robotics India Ltd (PARI) and Mr. Sunil Raibagi, Managing Director, Gudel India Pvt. Ltd. presented their ideas. Mr. Vikram Salunkhe, Treasurer, MCCIA, GC member, Auto Cluster expressed the Vote of Thanks.

This year's exhibition, though a bit smaller in size than the previous year, showcased some extremely high-end technology solutions in Robotics, Automation, Engineering Services, Painting and Welding solutions and Machine tools for the Automotive industry.

It had technology displayed by major players in automotive technology such as Siemens, Gudel, Rockwell Automation, ABB, NI Systems, SAP, Ingersoll Rand, SHUNK, KPIT Cummins, Mitutoyo, Accurate Engineering among others.

This year the organizers, in association with Menzel Robovision, organized a unique introductory session on "Machine Vision" which highly appreciated by attendees. It attempts to bring on one platform eminent speakers from the machine vision industry, some satisfied machine vision users and also prospective machine vision users from the Indian Automotive Industry to share technology trends, success stories and also unveil the road map ahead.

Focussed Events aims to have such seminars / courses / forum in all its programs in future.

Principally, visitors / buyers came from Vehicle and component manufacturing organizations from Pune and surrounding districts. As compared with the last edition's almost 10000, this year saw a drop in numbers, attributed to a hectic production schedule in February for most auto companies.

Mr. Sameer Khedkar - Exhibition Director said "By and large the tone of the industry has moved upward, but one can still feel an undercurrent of a passing recessionary phase and a cautious disposition of buyers"

The level of decision makers that arrived at the show of course, was the delight of all exhibiting companies. Retrained budget for Trade-show attendance manifested itself positively for many quality conscious vendors.

The visitor community comprised of OEM, third-party manufacturers, Component manufacturers from Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 manufacturers. Managers from Planning, Quality, Design dept., Production, Capital purchase, Procurement, New Projects heads, Maintenance, R & D dept. heads, Engineers from the assembly line, Technology managers etc. formed the core visitor profile.

There were in all about 78 participants and 9 technical presentations. A complete list of participants and the presentation program is available on the e-show link.

The topics for the seminar were:

• Speeding up time to market with high productivity
  
• Emerging trends in Powertrain Manufacturing
  
• Energy Conservation in 4th utility - Compressed Air system
  
• Manufacturing excellence
  
• Machine Vision in Action - Providing the cutting edge to the Automotive Industry
  
• Challenges and Opportunities in quality inspection using vibration techniques
  
• BIW Technologies & Products
  
• Lean Manufacturing
  

ARAI - Automotive Research Association of India is a co-operative industrial research association established by the automotive industry with the Ministry of Industries, Government of India. It works in harmony and complete confidence with its members, customers and the Government of India to offer the finest services, which earned for itself ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and NABL accreditations.

AIA - Automation Industry Association was founded in 2004 by leading Automation Technology players in the country & worldwide, it comprises 53 high-tech companies delivering products & integrated Automation solutions. AIA has been regularly conducting in-depth, industry-focussed Seminars along with partner associations.

The ACDRI was established under the Industrial Infrastructure Up-gradation Scheme (IIUS) of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India along with the local Municipal Corporation, i.e. Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. It is a facility for providing support to Small & Medium Enterprises in the area of common facility, validation, training and market promotional activities especially for the automotive and engineering sector.

The exhibition and presentations were open at 10.00 AM and closed at 7.00 PM on all four days of the event. It was open for trade professionals only from the automotive and engineering segments.