Over two days this week, CECIMO held it Autumn meetings in the form of the Brussels Forum. It was opened by Markus Schulte, Head of Cabinet to Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education & Youth at the European Commission who highlighted the critical role of manufacturing, and the machine tool sector in particular, in the European economy. The experts gathered at the forum discussed innovative manufacturing, technology, the current state of the industry, and skills development.
During the Forum, CECIMO announced the first winner of its Machine Tools Innovation (MTI) Awards which went to Aldakin Automation S.L. for their project on “Eliminating human exposure to potentially carcinogenic dust and increasing robot performance in machining of composite parts”.
The second day of the event was dedicated to the economic situation during which it was noted that despite the relatively gloomy outlook, there is still expected to be a modest growth in machine tool output in Europe in 2023, although it is more cautious about 2024 with orders falling in the first three quarters of this year.
In the formal General Assembly meeting that followed the Forum discussions, CECIMO announced that Mr François Duval would take over as its new President for a two-year term, succeeding Dr Heinz-Jürgen Prokop. Mr Duval has been Managing Director of GF Machining Solutions France since July 2020 and also served 6 years as President of the Machine Tool Manufacturers and Importers Group within the French trade association.
You can read the full announcements from both the Brussels Forum and the CECIMO General Assembly in the files below – they are also available on the CECIMO website at https://www.cecimo.eu/ (scroll down this page to the “Recent News” section).