Industry meeting breaks records
More than 900 visitors from 36 countries, 80 exhibition stands and 64 presentations, 18 alone for the pump industry. This is the positive result of the “International Rotating Equipment Conference 2008, Pumps and Compressors”. The event was organised by VDMA in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 28 to 29 October.
After a joint conference of the "International Pump Users' Forum" had been held together with the "International Compressor Users' Forum" in 2004, this year's event was held together with the "European Forum for Reciprocating Compressors (EFRC)". This addition was also accompanied by a change of venue, and so the conference took place in Düsseldorf for the first time. The inclusion of the third conference was regarded as a special bonus for users and manufacturers. The concentration of all three conferences at a single venue and on a single date meant that the visitors had access to both a diverse range of information and were able to save time.
The response to the conference was correspondingly positive as shown by the feedback from the call for papers and the registrations of participants and exhibitions. Overall, the organisers recorded some 910 participants from 36 countries, forty percent of whom came from outside Germany. At the last conference in 2004, this figure was only around 16%, and at that time even the total number of visitors was almost a quarter less. With a total of 80 stands on 740 square metres and 18 lectures for the pump industry alone at the "9th Pump Users International Forum 2008", there was a large increase in numbers over the last conference in Karlsruhe in 2004. And some people even said that this was the world's largest conference on the subject of "Pumps and Compressors". Visitors numbered approximately half-and-half for each industry. The majority of participants were either manufacturers or distributors; eight percent were scientists or engineers, including over 20 students and up-and-coming scientists who were able to take part in the forum thanks to the VDMA's sponsorship programme in cooperation with its research partners at the universities.
The organisers were also very pleased with the conference's diverse programme content and the best lectures were awarded prizes at the conclusion of the conference. Two "Best Paper Awards" were awarded during the Pump Forum– one for a contribution from the industry and the other for a contribution from the scientific area. The winners were Dr. Philippe Dupont from Sulzer Pumpen AG (industry) and Sohail Ahmed from Braunschweig Technical University (science). Because this conference was such a success, the organisers are seriously considering continuing their cooperation of these industry conferences and thus holding the next conference in 2012 on a joint basis as well.
A complete report and a photo retrospect about this event were published in Pump Engineer News December 2008 edition.