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The German machine building industry has been badly affected by the global economic crisis. Despite the slight lift in spirits in Germany’s economy, which was reflected in the Ifo Business Climate Index at the beginning of the year, order rates in the industrial goods industry are unsteady. Pessimists anticipate not only a decline in exports, but also a slump in production investments at home. Reduced workloads on existing equipment and machines are an additional concern to those in positions of responsibility. Work places are in danger. However, within the crisis there is also opportunity. There is a recognisable trend in systems technology which moves away from large fully automated machines and leans towards variable manual systems.
According to the January survey of the Munich Ifo Institute for Economic Research, approximately 7000 companies reported increased business expectations in comparison to last month. However, in these times of economic uncertainty large capital investments are avoided. Instead, the industry is concentrating on manually loaded “single cell solutions” or “smart work benches”. The company DEPRAG SCHULZ GMBH & CO, specialists for automation, air tools and screwdriving technology based in Amberg, Germany, have also observed this development. “We have registered an increased demand for operator based systems in particular”, confirmed Sales Manager Jürgen Hierold.
The processing reliability of the manual “smart work benches” is just as secure a
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